Mating behaviour of the ‘cosmopolitan’ speciesPhyllognathopus viguieri(Copepoda: Harpacticoida) and its systematical significance

Abstract

The mating behaviour was studied and recorded on video with individuals of four cultures of Phyllognathopus viguieri from different populations obtained from the interstitial water of a slow sand filter near the river Ruhr (Germany) (Ruhr population), from a compost heap in Bethesda (Maryland, USA) (Maryland population), from a rain gauge in Windsor Campbell farm (Jamaica) (Jamaica population), and a tree trunk with moss in a forest in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) (Brazil population). The mating behaviour was divided into the well-known initial phase, copula phase and postcopulatory mate guarding phase. An additional phase prior to the initial phase serves to recognize the female, the recognition phase. The mating behaviour is identical in the males of the Jamaica and Brazil populations of P. viguieri. A postcopulatory mate guarding phase is not found in these two groups. Here, we refute the hypothesis, that a postcopulatory mate guarding phase is found in taxa in which only adult males grasp adult females. The males of the Ruhr and Maryland populations differ from each other in their mating behaviour. Generally, the males of all four populations do not mate with fertilized females which are equally unattractive to the males, i.e., females mate only once in their lifetime to produce offspring. These results corroborate the view that the different populations of P. viguieri do not belong to a single cosmopolitan species.

Revealing higher than expected diversity of Harpacticoida (Crustacea:Copepoda) in the North Sea using MALDI-TOF MS and molecular barcoding

“…M. littorale 44 ). This contradicts findings of molecular studies but also ignores results of crossing experiments in which different populations of the cosmopolitan species Phyllognathopus viguieri (Maupas, 1892) were already described to show different mating behavior 45 and to be completely reproductively separated 46 . Specimens from different spatial populations did not interbreed and therefore likely constituted sibling species rather than one biological species.…”

Systematics of the Phyllognathopodidae (Copepoda, Harpacticoida): re-examination of Phyllognathopus viguieri (Maupas, 1892) and Parbatocamptus jochenmartensi Dumont and Maas, 1988, proposal of a new genus for Phyllognathopus bassoti Rouch, 1972, and description of a new species of Phyllognathopus

“… Gurney 1932 , Lang 1948 ) considered them as ecophenotypes of the widespread Phyllognathopus viguieri . Since Gurney’s (1932) material came from different sites and, more importantly, different botanical gardens harbouring different imported tropical plants, it is highly conceivable that these different populations belong to different species and that caudal rami polymorphism is much more limited than previously assumed, as also observed by Königshoff and Glatzel (2008) in reared populations of Phyllognathopus viguieri sensu lato . On the other hand, the same authors stressed that the morphology of the posterolateral and inner terminal setae of female caudal rami is per se a weak diagnostic character, since species with the same setal morphology do not interbreed.…”