Abstract
Rigorous species delimitation is a challenge in biology and systematics in particular. In insects, male genitalia traditionally, and the barcoding region of the CO1 gene recently, are the main markers to identify species, even though a standalone use of CO1 for that is often criticized. In our systematic revision of the mycophagous and in other ways peculiar oxyporine rove beetles of Russia, the legacy alpha-taxonomy could not be improved by traditional investigation of genitalia as they are unusually character-poor in this group. Using phylogenetic inference and ancestral state reconstruction, we demonstrate that CO1 and endophallus are useful markers for species delimitation in Oxyporus. We also show that manymorphological traits previously used for species delimitation in Oxyporus are in fact highly variable and thus inconsistent. We hypothesize that in Oxyporus diversification of the endophallic structures is driven by intense intra-A nd inter-species interactions of multiple individuals co-occurring in narrow spaces inside fungal bodies during mating. Our results encourage broader use of both markers, especially easyto-generate DNA barcodes, for the desired alpha-taxonomical work in Oxyporinae globally. The revision revealed 10 species of Oxyporus in the fauna of the Russian Federation; eliminated erroneous species records; established two new synonyms, Oxyporus (Oxyporus) basicornis Cameron, 1930 = O. (O.) aequicollis Bernhauer, 1935, syn.nov. = O. (O.) parvus Lee et al., 2020, syn. nov.; and raised the hypothesis that O. (O.) aokii Dvoaak, 1956, O. (O.) basiventris Jarrige, 1948 and O. (O.) kobayashii Hayashi, 2015 are conspecific with O. (O.) maxillosus Fabricius, 1793. Lectotypes are designated for O. (O.) basicornis Cameron, 1930, O. (O.) germanus Sharp, 1889, O. (O.) niger Sharp, 1889, and O. (O.) triangulus Sharp, 1889. Comprehensive taxonomic treatment and an identification key are provided for all species. c Alexandra S. Tokareva et al., 2021.
Originalsprog | Engelsk |
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Tidsskrift | Contributions to Zoology |
Vol/bind | 90 |
Udgave nummer | 3 |
Sider (fra-til) | 344-407 |
Antal sider | 64 |
ISSN | 1383-4517 |
DOI | |
Status | Udgivet - 2021 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:We sincerely thank S. A. Shabalin (Federal Scientific Center of the East Asia Terrestrial Biodiversity, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences ( feb ras , Vladivostok) for providing us a significant part of the studied material and some of his baseline data on Far Eastern Oxyporus. We also thank our colleagues from the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Science, another main source of the material for our revision, for the access to the Staphylinidae collection and support. Finally, some material came from Kirill Makarov (Moscow State Pedagogical University), Alexandr Ryvkin (Severtsov Institute of Problems of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences) and Nadezhda Ukhova (Visimskiy State Nature Biosphere Reserve), which is appreciated too. A. V. Kuprin and M. M. and N.V. Omelko are greatly acknowledged for the accommodation and support at the Gornotaezhnaya Station feb ras , as well as Alice Ukhan for the accommodation in Vladivostok and permanent help. We would like to sincerely acknowledge our colleagues Kee-Jeong Ahn and Jaeha Lee (Chungnam National University, South Korea) who kindly provided their then yet unpublished sequences of Oxyporus parvus and others upon our request. Michael Schülke (Berlin) very helpfully shared his material and other data on Oxyporus maxillosus, while Alfred Newton and Harald Schillhammer are thanked for checking the Field Museum and Vienna Museum of Natural History collections, respectively, for the type of O. aequicollis. Eduard Khachikov (Rostov-on-Don State University) and Denis Kassatkin (Rostov-on-Don branch of the fsi “VNIIKR”) are acknowledged for sharing their experience with making endophallus preparations and use of the endophallic data in coleopterology. We are grateful to Aslak Kappel Hansen (Natural History Museum of Denmark) for the live photo of Oxyporus (Pseudoxyporus) dybowskii () taken in Altai and for his companionship during the collecting trip across West Siberia to Altai in 2019 where some material used in this paper was collected. That expedition was funded by the Carlsberg Foundation grant. Special thanks to Maria Gaianova (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität) and team members of the resource center “Chromas” at Saint Petersburg State University ( spbu ) for consultation of and support for the molecular part of the research. We acknowledge the spbu resource centers “Chromas”, “Molecular and Cell Technologies” and “Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis” for access to laboratory equipment and technical assistance. Thanks to three anonymous reviewers and comments from the editor, the manuscript has been considerably improved after the submission. This paper is part of the project 20-14-00097 funded by the Russian Science Foundation.
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