Relationships of nine Italian Chrysotoxum species were analysed using morphological and molecular data. The morphology-derived cladogram revealed three well-defined groups: (i) C. cautum, (ii) the arcuatum group (C. arcuatum, C. fasciolatum) and (iii) the festivum group (C. festivum - C. vernale, C. bicinctum, C. elegans, C. octomaculatum and C. parmense). Trees inferred from COI-tRNALeu-COII sequences were largely in agreement, but they identified (i) C. parmense as an isolated branch, (ii) C. festivum and C. vernale as separate entities, (iii) C. elegans within a paraphyletic C. festivum clade. ITS2 trees were partially unresolved but C. parmense sequence emerged as a sister to the festivum group. The monophyly of the festivum group derived from morphological data was rejected by a phylogenetic test performed on combined molecular data set. The diagnostic value of some morphological characters commonly used to identify Chrysotoxum species is therefore questioned.
Two species of Coccomyxa Léger et Hesse, 1907, one of the least studied myxosporean genera, are reported from shallow coastal waters in the Gulf of Eilat, Red Sea, Israel. A new species, Coccomyxa jirilomi sp. n. is described from the spotted frillgoby Bathygobius cyclopterus (Valenciennes) (Gobiidae). It forms polysporous plasmodia that invade the liver and form packed clusters inside the bile ductules. Plasmodia also occur in the bile ducts and gall bladder of the host, attached to the epithelial lining or free floating in the bile. Infected hepatic bile ductules packed with plasmodia were partially occluded, with evidence of cholestasis, periductular fibrosis and pericholangitis. The mature spore is ellipsoid, has smooth valves and contains a single polar capsule with the polar filament arranged in 4-5 oblique coils. Spore dimensions are 9.0-11.3 × 5.0-7.0 µm. A second species, Coccomyxa sp., with smaller 7.6-9.6 × 4.2-5.2 µm and more delicate spores, was found in the gall bladder of the rippled rockskipper, Istiblennius edentulus (Forster et Schneider) (Blenniidae). The small subunit (SSU) rDNA sequence analysis of both Coccomyxa species suggests that they are closely related to members of the genera Myxidium, Zschokkella and Auerbachia, whose members infect the gall bladder of marine fish.
The monophyly of the Endopterygota is supported primarily by the specialized larva without external wing buds and with degradable eyes, as well as by the quiescence of the last immature (pupal) stage; a specialized morphology of the latter is not an endopterygote groundplan trait. There is weak support for the basal endopterygote splitting event being between a Neuropterida + Coleoptera clade and a Mecopterida + Hymenoptera clade; a fully sclerotized sitophore plate in the adult is a newly recognized possible groundplan autapomorphy of the latter. The molecular evidence for a Strepsiptera + Diptera clade is differently interpreted by advocates of parsimony and maximum likelihood analyses of sequence data, and the morphological evidence for the monophyly of this clade is ambiguous. The basal diversification patterns within the principal endopterygote clades (\"orders\") are succinctly reviewed. The truly species-rich clades are almost consistently quite subordinate. The identification of \"key innovations\" promoting evolutionary success (in terms of large species numbers) is fraught with difficulties., Niels P. Kristensen, and Lit
Dolichopodidae (over 6000 described species in more than 200 genera) is one of the most speciose families of Diptera. Males of many dolichopodid species, including Dolichopus, feature conspicuous ornaments (Male Secondary Sexual Characters) that are used during courtship. Next to these MSSCs, every identification key to Dolichopus primarily uses colour characters (postocular bristles; femora) of unknown phylogenetic relevance. The phylogeny of Dolichopodidae has rarely been investigated, especially at the species level, and molecular data were hardly ever involved. We inferred phylogenetic relationships among 45 species (57 samples) of the subfamily Dolichopodinae on the basis of 32 morphological and 1415 nucleotide characters (810 for COI, 605 for Cyt-b). The monophyly of Dolichopus and Gymnopternus as well as the separate systematic position of Ethiromyia chalybea were supported in all analyses, confirming recent findings by other authors based purely on morphology. Within Dolichopus, stable species groups could be assigned to four distinct categories on the basis of their statistical support in 7 phylogenetic analyses: (i) clades significantly supported in all analyses, (ii) clades supported in trees based on DNA and combined data, but only partly in morphological trees, (iii) clades significantly supported in trees based on DNA and combined data, but not in morphological trees, and (iv) clades consistently supported only in morphological trees. The phylogeny generated here provides a better understanding of the phylogenetic relevance of some debated morphological characters used for species and species-group characterizations in the most commonly used identification keys. In this respect, postocular bristle colour proved of little phylogenetic relevance since every group with species featuring black bristles also included species with partly yellow bristles. Entirely or partly infuscated femora explained the nodes of three stable species groups and even revealed an incorrect polarity of this morphological character in three species. Four of 6 complex MSSCs and 5 of 8 more common MSSCs were found consistently in further species groups.
New strains of non-vannellid flattened amoebae isolated from fish, an invertebrate and the marine environment were studied together with Flabellula citata Schaeffer, 1926 selected by morphology as a reference strain. The study revealed a paucity of features distinguishing individual strains at the generic level, but clearly evidenced mutual phylogenetic relationships within the assemblage of strains as well as their affiliation to the Leptomyxida. In this study, the SSU rDNA dataset of leptomyxids was expanded and a new branching pattern was presented within this lineage of Amoebozoa. Sequences of three newly introduced strains clustered in close relationship with the type strain of F. citata, the type species of the genus. Three strains, including one resembling Flamella sp., were positioned within a sister-group containing Paraflabellula spp. Results of phylogenetic analysis confirmed doubts of previous authors regarding generic assignment of several Rhizamoeba and Ripidomyxa strains.
The genus Zabrus Clairville, 1806 is a Holomediterranean taxon that radiated into about a hundred species most likely during the Cenozoic. There are four endemic subgenera on the Iberian Peninsula, which include 28 species, Epomidozabrus (3 spp.), Euryzabrus (1 sp.), Platyzabrus (2 spp.) and Iberozabrus (22 spp.). A mitochondrial fragment comprising part of the cytochrome-oxidase-I, tRNAleu, and part of the cytochrome-oxidase-II genes was sequenced of most of these species. Taxa of other subgenera of Zabrus (Macarozabrus, Polysitus, Zabrus, and Pelor), six species of Amara (the putative sister taxon of Zabrus), and representatives of tribes related to Zabrini were also sequenced. The results show that the genus Zabrus is a monophyletic taxon well separated from Amara. The four subgenera endemic to the Iberian Peninsula also make up a monophyletic clade, which stresses the association between the geographic distribution and the monophyly of many supraspecific taxa within this genus. The species-rich subgenus Iberozabrus seems to be the sister taxon of the clade made up of the three other subgenera endemic to the Iberian Peninsula. The Iberozabrus species-groups proposed by Andújar & Serrano in 2001, based on morphological and geographical grounds, are only partly corroborated by the molecular phylogeny. The lack of congruence between these data sets is mainly between those species-groups with large numbers of species and more complex geographic patterns. Some cases of incongruence are possibly due to homoplasic external characters appeared by convergent evolution.
Phylogenetic relationships of 27 species within the genus Ochotona were reconstructed through mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. Maximum parsimony, neighbor-joining and maximum likelihood analysis strongly indicated five major species groups: the northern group, the surrounding Qinghai-Tibet Plateau group, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau group, the Huanghe group, and the Central Asia group. The northern group is composed of O. alpina, O. hyperborea, O. pallasi, O. princeps, and . The surrounding Qinghai-Tibet Plateau group includes O. macrotis, O. roylei, O. ladacensis, O. rutila, O. erythrotis, O. gloveri, O. brookei, O. muliensis, O. iliensis, O. himalayana, O. koslowi, O. forresti, and O. rufescens. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau group contains O. curzoniae, O. thibetana, O. cansus, O. annectens, O. nubrica, O. daurica, and O. thomasi. The Huanghe group and the Central Asia group comprise only one species, O. huangensis and O. pusilla, respectively. Our data did not support the previous subgeneric classification. The phylogenetic trees suggested that divergences of the five groups occurred in the Early Pleistocene (about 2.8 Myr ago), and that the differentiation of the surrounding Qinghai-Tibet Plateau group, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau group, and the Huanghe group was closely related to the uplifting of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the radiation prompted by environmental changes could play a major role in these groups. Due to the relatively stable environments, however, differentiations were not so strong within the northern group and the Central Asia group, which had never invaded the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
1_External morphological characters were used to reconstruct a phylogeny of the mite family Syringophilidae (Acariformes: Cheyletoidea), which are permanent parasites inhabiting the quills of bird feathers. A total of 53 syringophilid genera and 79 characters were included in the data matrix; maximum parsimony (MP) and Bayesian analyses (BA) were performed to determine their phylogenetic relationships. The consensus of unweighted MP trees was weakly resolved. Only four generic groups were recognized: Aulonastus + Krantziaulonastus (i) and (Creagonycha + Kethleyana) + (Megasyringophilus + Selenonycha) (ii) – both with low Bremer support (BS 1); the subfamily Picobiinae – Picobia, Calamincola, Columbiphilus (Neopicobia + Rafapicobia) (BS 12) (iii) and Psittaciphilus generic group – (Meitingsunes + Psittaciphilus) (Peristerophila + (Neoperisterophila + (Castosyringophilus + Terratosyringophilus))) (BS 2) (iv). BA revealed a consensus tree with a topology similar to MP. The two main groups recognized by MP, the subfamily Picobiinae and Psittaciphilus, both received the highest support of 1; while two other groups recognized by MP – Aulonastus + Krantziaulonastus and (Creagonycha + Kethleyana) + (Megasyringophilus + Selenonycha) received relatively low support of 0.73–74 and 0.76–77, respectively., 2_The consensus of re-weighted MP trees was almost fully resolved but, the majority of the generic groups, excluding the Picobiinae and Psittaciphilus were supported by just a few non-unique synapomorphies with a high probability of homoplastic origin. The most intriguing result is the paraphyly of the Syringophilinae in respect to picobiines. The pattern of the re-weighted tree demonstrates only patches of parallel evolution at the level of syringophilid genera and bird orders. Perhaps horizontal shifts on phylogenetically distant hosts and colonization of quill (calamus) types other than primaries and secondaries were also important in the evolution of the syringophilids., Maciej Skoracki, Eliza Glowska, Andre V. Bochkov., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
We described the genetic variation of cytochrome b gene sequences of blind mole rats in Turkey. We examined 47 individuals belonging to nine cytotypes of three superspecies Nannospalax leucodon, N. xanthodon and N. ehrenbergi in the 402bp gene sequence of cytochrome b. Phylogenetic analyses showed that relationships between cytotypes were well supported, but deeper divergence between species showed insignificant relationships. Cytotypes of N. xanthodon with low diploid number of chromosomes from western Turkey formed a monophyletic group distinct from the populations with higher number of chromosomes (2n = 56-60). The monophyly of N. xanthodon was supported with respect to N. leucodon (2n = 56) in the Bayesian and maximum likelihood phylogenies. The divergence between two analyzed cytotypes of N. ehrenbergi (2n = 52, 2n = 56) was 9.4 %, and the Kilis cytotype (2n = 52) appeared as the basal branch of the whole analysed dataset. N. ehrenbergi cytotypes were paraphyletic and they formed unsupported relationships with previously described N. galili (2n = 52), N. golani (2n = 54), N. carmeli (2n = 58) and N. judaei (2n = 60) from Israel. The results of this study showed that the Nannospalax species complex most likely represents more species than currently recognized, especially in N. xanthodon. We suggest that cytotypes of N. xanthodon and N. ehrenbergi from Turkey should be investigated in detail as possible candidates for being separate species.
Adaptive immunity is commonly viewed as a unique vertebrate feature. A misleading view on vertebrate longevity compared to non-vertebrate animals together with oversimplification of ‘invertebrate’ phylogeny sometimes serves for justifying the limitation of adaptive immunity exclusively to vertebrates. However, here we emphasise that the borderline for differentiation between ‘innate’ and ‘adaptive’ immunity may be fuzzy and artificial. In each taxon, the feature of bearing a particular immunological mechanism should reflect its costs and benefits in a given ecological context. Hence, in invertebrates with a long lifespan some kind of acquired immunity could be expected. Indeed, several recent studies support this view. We therefore stress that the definition of ‘adaptivity’ of immune response should reflect the system function instead of a certain molecular mechanism adopted. If these altered criteria are considered then several pieces of recent evidence indicate that the adaptive immunity in animals might have arisen several times independently and in very different forms.