Endemism in the Cladocera (Crustacea: Branchiopoda) of Southern Africa

Abstract

We review the current state of knowledge and patterns of distribution in the endemic Cladocera (Crustacea: Branchiopoda) of Southern Africa and describe two species of the Western Cape, of which one is new to science. Frey (1993), Korovchinsky (2006) and Smirnov (2008)

Tropical Amphi-Pacific disjunctions in the Cladocera (Crustacea: Branchiopoda)

“…However, if the boreotropics played such a crucial role, it remains unclear why no more cladoceran lineages than the ones suggested here, have an Amphi-Pacific disjunction. Closer taxonomical revisions and molecular analysis on circumtropical cladoceran line- At present, our knowledge of the African faunas is too limited (Van Damme et al, 2013a) to completely rule out the presence of Leydigiopsis on the latter continent (a similar case might be true for India; Chatterjee et al, 2013). However, this study highlights the need for more biogeographical research in the cladocerans and the need to be open to different hypotheses that could be tested by using molecular methods.…”

“…In fact, a Gondwana vicariant pattern is the general and mostly favoured assumption to explain disjunctions of this type in other groups as well, but not necessarily the correct or the only one (Christenhusz and Chase, 2013). Africa likely underwent severe extinctions in the Cladocera and the continent is among the poorest studied regions in the cladocerans, yet with high potential for endemic zones such as Southern Africa (Van Damme et al, 2013a), where we might expect another vicariant. There is a link between several of the South African endemics (which are poorly known) and Australia, but not with SE Asia (Van Damme et al, 2013a).…”

“…Africa likely underwent severe extinctions in the Cladocera and the continent is among the poorest studied regions in the cladocerans, yet with high potential for endemic zones such as Southern Africa (Van Damme et al, 2013a), where we might expect another vicariant. There is a link between several of the South African endemics (which are poorly known) and Australia, but not with SE Asia (Van Damme et al, 2013a). However, Leydigiopsis has never been found in any of the other major Gondwana fragments in the tropics, such as Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Madagascar or Australia.…”

“…South Africa, Madagascar and large parts of India are still undersampled for Cladocera (e.g. Chatterjee et al, 2013;Van Damme et al, 2013a) and it is impossible to rule out whether a future locality might still be found with a Leydigiopsis 5. No specific tests have been carried out on the tolerance of the ephippia of this particular genus and relatively little known about its biology 6.…”

“…For a modern distribution to appear Gondwanan, it should involve more than one ocean basin (Nelson and Ladiges, 2001). Even though India, Sri Lanka (Chatterjee et al, 2013), large portions of Africa (Van Damme et al, 2013a, 2013b) and Madagascar are not well known, Australia is better investigated for Cladocera. We can rule out Leydigiopsis from the Western ghats in India, where a wide range of habitats is recently investigated (S. Padhye, unpublished data) and the taxon does not occur in rich samples collected from Madagascar (H.J.…”