Taxonomic studies on the Talitridae (Crustacea, Amphipoda) from Taiwan. -II. The genus Platorchestia

Abstract

Four species of the genus Platorchestia Bousfield are described from Taiwan, e.g., P. pacifica n. sp., P. joi Stock and Biembaum, 1994, P. japonica (Tattersall,l922) and P. humicola (Martens, 1868). The former two species, together with P. platensis (Kmyer, 1845) and P. munmui Jo, 1988, compose a closely related species cluster. P. pacifica n. sp. was found on almost all the coast of the mainland and neighboring islands in Taiwan, while the other three species were found in the mainland north of23.5°N.

First Record of Terrestrial Talitrid Amphipod (Crustacea: Amphipoda: Talitridae) from Korea

“…Platorchestia japonica are distributed in Japan (Tattersall, 1922;Morino, 1999), China (Morino and Dai, 1990;Hou and Li, 2003) and Taiwan (Miyamoto and Morino, 2004). The features of Korean P. japonica accord well with previously identified specimens.…”

“…This taxon is found at the shores of rivers and coastal areas, in areas including supralittoral zones, grass lands, and small patches of leaf-litter, on both mainland and islands (Miyamoto and Morino, 2004).…”

Cryptic diversity of the semi-terrestrial amphipod Platorchestia japonica (Tattersall, 1922) (Amphipoda: Talitrida: Talitridae) in Japan and Taiwan, with description of a new species

“…The morphology is very close to P. japonica sensu stricto (Tattersall 1922). Miyamoto & Morino (2004) considered their material collected from North Taiwan as P. japonica and Miyamoto & Morino (2004) noted their Taiwanese specimens differed from P. japonica collected from the Lake Biwa, Japan in the degree of sexual dimorphisms in peduncle articles 4 and 5 of antenna 2 and carpus of pereopod 7, shape of coxal plate of pereopod 6 and anterodistal corner of the posterior, morphology of marginal spines in peduncles of pleopods 2 and 3 and the spine patterns in pereopod 6 and 7. In the present study, we found that P. japonica identified by Miyamoto & Morino (2004) in Taiwan was P. paludosus identified in the present study.…”

“…In the N.W. Pacific, P. japonica (Tattersall, 1922) was reported to be widely distributed in the W. Pacific region including China, Japan and Taiwan (Tattersall 1922;Morino & Dai 1990;Morino 1999;Miyamoto & Morino 2004). Platorchestia japonica inhabits leaf litter found at the waterfront of rivers, lakes and paddy fields (Tattersall 1922;Iwasa 1965;Morino & Dai 1990;Morino 1999;Hou & Li 2003;Miyamoto & Morino 2004;Hou & Li 2005), playing important ecological roles in the detritus food chains (Friend & Richardson 1986;Richardson & Morton 1986;Morritt & Spicer 1998;Graça et al 2000).…”

“…Platorchestia japonica was first described from Lake Biwa, Japan by Tattersall (1922), and descriptions of P. japonica from previous studies mainly relied on light microscopy, which can only reflect limited morphological details (see Miyamoto & Morino 2004). Recent advances in using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) can reflect more sophisticated morphological details (see Lowry & Springthorpe 2009), especially the types of setae (also see Miyamoto & Morino 2004 for the importance of setae in Platorchestia taxonomy based on light microscopy), allowing identification of individual species from species complexes (Lowry & Springthorpe 2009;Zimmer et al 2009). Recent SEM studies have started in the family Dogielinotidae, reporting seven groups of setae which can be used for taxonomic studies (Zimmer et al 2009).…”