Taxonomy and molecular phylogeny of the Neotropical genusAtlantoscia(Oniscidea, Philosciidae): DNA barcoding and description of two new species

Abstract

Identification to the species level using morphology is challenging when usual diagnostic characters are similar amongst related taxa. Within the Neotropical genus Atlantoscia, differences between nominal species are generally small and restricted to a few characters. Despite the power of DNA sequencing to identify and distinguish between species, molecular phylogenies of terrestrial isopods from the Neotropics have not been determined. In this study, two new species of Atlantoscia were described and molecular markers were used to verify both the validity of the current taxonomy and the relationships amongst the species within this genus. All of the recognized Atlantoscia species were strongly supported in the generated phylogenetic trees. The average congeneric distance was 14.7%, with Atlantoscia ituberasensis and Atlantoscia rubromarginata showing the highest genetic divergence. Our results demonstrate the utility of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene together with DNA barcoding to reliably distinguish Atlantoscia species. They also show that DNA barcoding may be helpful in those cases in which classical taxonomy does not provide clear-cut species resolution.

Integrative taxonomy reveals a new genus and new species of Philosciidae (Crustacea: Isopoda: Oniscidea) from the Neotropical region

“…As pointed out previously, Atlantoscia species are morphologically similar and the diagnostic characteristics traditionally used to delimit species are few and subtle (Campos-Filho et al 2013;Zimmermann et al 2015). Despite this similarity, the respiratory areas on the pleopod exopods of In addition to the morphological evidence, molecular analysis with both mitochondrial and nuclear genes also showed that the Atlantoscia and Paratlantoscia comprise distinct and well supported clades with a high genetic divergence between them.…”

“…The authors demonstrated that using integrative taxonomy by coupling morphology and DNA sequences is an efficient strategy for delimitation of Atlantoscia species and to investigate their relationships. However, some issues still persist For instance, Atlantoscia rubromarginata Araujo & Leistikow, 1999 and Atlantoscia ituberasensis Campos-Filho, Lisboa & Araujo, 2013 are quite different from the other congeneric species and thus might not belong to this genus (Zimmermann et al 2015). Specifically, they are genetically and geographically distant and possess unique and specialized morphologies, with well developed respiratory areas in the pleopods (Campos-Filho et al 2013).…”

“…Recently, many efforts have been made to describe the diversity of the terrestrial isopods from Neotropics (e. g., Schmidt, 2007;Campos-Filho et al 2013Souza et al 2015; López-Orozco et al 2017). Unfortunately, few studies had focused in the BAF (i. e., Campos-Filho et al 2013Zimmermann et al 2015). Many surveys were made in the last years and many specimens still wait for recognition and formal descriptions (i. e., Fernandes et al 2015;Silva and Ferreira 2015).…”

“…PCR amplifications were performed using (Folmer et al 1994), which amplifies an approximately 700-bp fragment of the mitochondrial COI gene (COI) and using primers SSU_04F / SSU_R22 (Blaxter et al 1998) which amplifies an approximately 500-bp fragment of the nuclear 18S rRNA gene (18S). Standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was run and PCR products were checked by agarose gel electrophoresis (see Zimmermann et al 2015). All DNA purification (performed with ExoSAP-IT PCR Product Cleanup Reagent) and sequencing was carried out by Macrogen (Seoul, South Korea), using BigDye technology, with each sample being sequenced in both the forward and reverse directions using the same primers as those used in amplification.…”

Taxonomic revision of Brasiloniscus (Oniscidea, Pudeoniscidae) with description of a new species

“…In the last years, our knowledge of the diversity of terrestrial isopods from Brazil has increased considerably and, to date, ca 200 species are known, including species from the subterranean environment (Schmalfuss 2003;Araujo & Quadros 2005;Souza et al 2006Souza et al , 2010Souza et al , 2011Souza et al , 2015Araujo & Taiti 2007;Sokolowicz et al 2008;Campos-Filho & Araujo 2011a, 2011bCampos-Filho et al 2012, 2013a, 2013b, 2015a, 2015b, 2016, 2017a, 2017b, 2017cCosta et al 2014;Zimmermann et al 2015;Cardoso et al 2016).…”