Species delimitation through DNA barcoding of freshwater leeches of theGlossiphoniagenus (Hirudinea: Glossiphoniidae) from Eastern Siberia, Russia

Abstract

The study of biodiversity is a priority task of biological science. The structural unit of biodiversity is a species that has a clear identification in a taxonomic system. Morphological features are traditionally the main criteria for species discrimination in zoological studies. However, the presence of inter‐ and intraspecific polymorphism and phenotypic plasticity makes it difficult to identify species in many groups of invertebrates. To solve this problem, in this research, we analyzed morphological and genetic data in combination to delimit species among the Eastern Siberia Glossiphonia leeches using different approaches. Morphology analysis revealed phenetically distinct groups, suggesting the existence of at least two species in the region, G. verrucata, a rare Palaearctic species, and a potentially new species Glossiphonia sp. Moreover, sequence‐based species delimitation methods congruently supported eight distinct species groups (including two Siberian species) within the available molecular dataset of the Glossiphonia world fauna, using phylogenetic (ML and BI), coalescent (ABGD and GMYC) methods, and pairwise analysis of sequences. The detected p‐distances (modal value of 0.11) between these 8 groups and the level of genetic polymorphism (max. 0.0041) within groups indicate that the groups are 8 independent species according to the DNA barcoding. Our results once again proved the usefulness of molecular systematics. At the same time, we detected several inaccuracies in the leech species identification, as well as many ambiguous sites in sequences uploaded on GenBank, which affects the analysis and impedes progress of DNA barcoding technology.

New data on species diversity of Annelida (Oligochaeta, Hirudinea) in the Kharbey lakes system, Bolshezemelskaya tundra (Russia)

“…Ecology. The boreal species inhabits the North Eurasia (Lukin 1976;Kaygorodova et al 2019), including recent findings in The Netherlands (Soes and Cuppen 2004) and France (Nesemann 1990;d'Hondt and Ben Ahmed 2009).…”

“…Previously mentioned as Holarctic species. However, recent molecular studies confuted its findings in North America (Williams et al 2013;Kaygorodova et al 2019). In tundra zone of Russia: some lakes in the Korotaikha River basin (Zaloznyj 1978), the Yamal Peninsula (Stepanov 2016(Stepanov , 2017.…”

DNA barcoding for species delimitation of the freshwater leech genus Glossiphonia from the Western Balkan (Hirudinea, Glossiphoniidae)

“… Siddall et al 2005 , Oceguera-Figueroa and León-Règagnon 2014 , Pérez-Flores et al 2016 , Mack and Kvist 2019 , Kaygorodova et al 2020 ). An integrative approach that combines morphological examination and molecular genetic data had helped to resolve the taxonomic status of some species ( Mack and Kvist 2019 , Kaygorodova et al 2020 ). For example, the molecular studies, conducted by Siddall et al (2005) and Mack and Kvist (2019) on North American populations previously assigned to Glossiphonia complanata (Linnaeus, 1758), reveal the presence of two well-defined species, with Glossiphonia complanata restricted to Europe and Glossiphonia elegans (Verrill, 1872) living in North America.…”

“…Species of the family Glossiphoniidae Vaillant, 1890 are generally small, dorsoventrally flattened leeches, distributed in freshwater ecosystems on all continents except Antarctica ( Nesemann and Neubert 1999 , Kaygorodova et al 2020 ). Representatives of these leeches are normally found feeding on the blood of turtles or amphibians and, as vectors of apicomplexan blood parasites, they play an important role in aquatic ecosystems ( Nesemann and Neubert 1999 , Siddall et al 2005 , Chiangkul et al 2021 ).…”

“…Distribution and species boundaries of the leeches of the genus Glossiphonia , the most diverse genus of the family, have been studied by several authors by means of the DNA barcode region of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene (COI) as a genetic marker (e.g. Siddall et al 2005 , Oceguera-Figueroa and León-Règagnon 2014 , Pérez-Flores et al 2016 , Mack and Kvist 2019 , Kaygorodova et al 2020 ). An integrative approach that combines morphological examination and molecular genetic data had helped to resolve the taxonomic status of some species ( Mack and Kvist 2019 , Kaygorodova et al 2020 ).…”