Species of Teratorhabditis (Osche, 1952) Dougherty, 1953 (Nematoda:Rhabditida) from sewage and manure samples in India including a discussion on relationships within the genus

Nematodes that Ride Insects: Unforeseen Consequences of Arriving Species§

“…During a field survey of its nematode associates in Kagoshima, Japan, T. synpapillata was isolated (Kanzaki et al 2008a). Because the nematode had originally been reported from South and Southeast Asian countries as phoretic associates of R. ferrugineus (Muthukrishnan 1971) or associates of nutrition-rich soil, humus or sewage water (Sudhaus 1985;Tahseen et al 2007), the population isolated from Japan was considered to be an introduced population accompanying its carrier weevil. The ecological ramifications of this introduction are unknown.…”

Teratorhabditis synpapillata Sudhaus, 1985 (Rhabditida: Rhabditidae) is an associate of the red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

“…A paper by Tahseen et al (2007) was discovered after acceptance of our manuscript. A short discussion of this paper is added because of its relevance.…”

“…In light of observations of morphological plasticity (as shown for T. palmarum) vs almost identical cryptic species within other genera such as Oscheius, Pristionchus, Pellioditis and Caenorhabditis (Félix et al, 2001;Herrmann et al, 2006;Derycke, 2007;Sudhaus & Kiontke, 2007), it now seems necessary to do mating tests and/or compare sequences to confirm that two similar strains belong to the same or to two different species. In the case of Tahseen et al (2007), we believe that such rigorous tests are necessary to ensure that the saprophagic Teratorhabditis strains belong to the three different species T. andrassyi, T. synpapillata and T. palmarum. This paper also presents a poorly supported phylogeny based on 15 parsimony informative characters which disagrees with our molecular phylogeny in the placement of T. synpapillata as the sister species of T. mariannae.…”