First recorded of Pontomyia Edwards, 1926 (Diptera: Chironomidae: Tanytarsini) in Brazil

Pontomyia Edwards, 1926 (Diptera: Chironomidae) is a genus of exclusively marine flightless midges. There are four described species from the Indo-Pacific, and one undescribed species known only from females, pupal skins, and larvae from the Atlantic/Caribbean. They are poorly known owing to their small size (~1.0 mm), extremely short adult life (< 3 h), and unusual habitat for an insect (coastal lagoons, bays, or rock pools). We reviewed scattered literature on their biology and systematics, presented photomicrographs of the male hypogium, and updated the geographic distribution of each species. We carried out the first molecular study to elucidate relationships among and within three of the species. Results from our four-gene phylogenetic reconstruction using combined gene tree and species tree approaches showed that Pontomyia natans, Pontomyia oceana, and Pontomyia pacifica are each well-supported clades, with P. natans as sister to P. oceana + P. pacifica. Genetic distances based on mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I are extraordinarily large within P. natans and P. pacifica, which suggests that they may be cryptic species complexes.z oj_680 443..456

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“…Brazil: Atol das Rocas, Rio Grande do Norte, 03°52′S, 33°49′W, larvae only (Henriques‐Oliveira, Silva & Nessimian, 2009).…”

Section: Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The flightless marine midge Pontomyia (Diptera: Chironomidae): ecology, distribution, and molecular phylogeny

Huang

Cheng

2011

Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society

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A complete species phylogeny of the marine midge Pontomyia (Diptera:Chironomidae) reveals a cosmopolitan species and a new synonym

Huang

Cranston

Cheng

2014

Invert. Systematics

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Pontomyia (Diptera : Chironomidae) is an exclusively marine and flightless insect genus with four described species from the Indo-Pacific and one undescribed taxon known only by its larvae, pupal skins and females from the western Atlantic. A previous study of relationships among three of the Indo-Pacific species reported each of them to be monophyletic, with high genetic diversity within P. natans Edwards, 1926, the type species, and P. pacifica Tokunaga, 1932. The evolutionary affinities of the Australian endemic P. cottoni Womersley, 1937, which resembles P. natans, as well as the putative Atlantic species are hitherto undetermined. A complete molecular phylogeny of the genus based on two nuclear and two mitochondrial DNA markers indicates that P. cottoni and a Puerto Rican (Atlantic) larval population are nested within the P. natans clade. Furthermore, P. natans and P. cottoni are inseparable in all morphological characters used previously to distinguish them. Therefore, we synonymise P. cottoni with P. natans, syn. nov., whose known range now encompasses all three ocean basins after including the Puerto Rican population. This distribution warrants further investigation into the life history of Pontomyia, a midge with one of the shortest known adult lifespans among insects.

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First recorded of Pontomyia Edwards, 1926 (Diptera: Chironomidae: Tanytarsini) in Brazil

Abstract: Some Pontomyia Edwards, 1926 larvae were sampled associated with algae and sediment at Atol das Rocas, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. This is the first record of the genus from South Atlantic Ocean.

Cited by 2 publications

References 10 publications

The flightless marine midge Pontomyia (Diptera: Chironomidae): ecology, distribution, and molecular phylogeny

The flightless marine midge Pontomyia (Diptera: Chironomidae): ecology, distribution, and molecular phylogeny

A complete species phylogeny of the marine midge Pontomyia (Diptera:Chironomidae) reveals a cosmopolitan species and a new synonym

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