A DNA barcode library for the water mites of Montenegro

Vladimir Pešić,Milica Jovanović,Ana Manović,Andrzej Zawal,Aleksandra Bańkowska

doi:10.3897/bdj.9.e78311

Abstract

Water mites (Acari, Hydrachnidia) are a significant component of freshwater ecosystems inhabiting a wide range of aquatic habitats. This study provides a first comprehensive DNA barcode library for the water mites of Montenegro. DNA barcodes were analysed from 233 specimens of water mites morphologically assigned to 86 species from 28 genera and 15 families. In the course of the study, four species, i.e. Lebertiareticulata (Koenike, 1919), Atractidesinflatipalpis K.Viets, 1950, A.latipes (Szalay, 1935) and Parabrachypodamontii (Maglio, 1924) were molecularly confirmed as new for Montenegro and three species, i.e. Protziaoctopora Lundblad, 1954, Pionalaminata (Thor, 1901) and Unionicolaypsilophora (Bonz, 1783) are new for the Balkan Peninsula. Results are analysed using the Barcode Index Number system (BIN) and the Refined Single Linkage (RESL) of BOLD. The BIN assigned sequences to 98 clusters, while the RESL reveal 103 operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Unique BINs were revealed for 72 species (83.7%), whereas twelve species (14%) were characterised by two BINs and two species (2.3%) with three BINs. Amongst the studied taxa, 14 species were found with a high intraspecific sequence divergences (˃ 2.2%), emphasising the need for additional comprehensive morphological and molecular analysis of these species.

Highlights

Hydrachnidia, known as water mites, is a most diverse and abundant group of arachnids in freshwater habitats (Davids et al 2007)
Traditional morphology often underestimates the true diversity of water mites and, in recent years, it has been successfully replaced by an integrative approach that combines both morphological characteristics and molecular data (Martin et al 2010, Pešić et al 2017, Fisher et al 2017, Pešić et al 2019a, Pešić et al 2020d, Pešić and Smit 2020)
DNA barcodes of 233 specimens morphologically assigned to 86 species from 28 genera and 15 families of water mites from Montenegro were newly generated for this study

Summary

Introduction

Hydrachnidia, known as water mites, is a most diverse and abundant group of arachnids in freshwater habitats (Davids et al 2007). Traditional morphology often underestimates the true diversity of water mites and, in recent years, it has been successfully replaced by an integrative approach that combines both morphological characteristics and molecular data (Martin et al 2010, Pešić et al 2017, Fisher et al 2017, Pešić et al 2019a, Pešić et al 2020d, Pešić and Smit 2020). This process has been enhanced by the formation of the comprehensive DNA barcode reference libraries, such as the BOLD System (https://www.boldsystems.org/) and GenBank (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). The significant increase in the number of studies using DNA barcodes in recent years, especially in some regions, has laid the foundations for building a comprehensive library of DNA barcodes at the national and/or regional level (e.g. Blattner et al 2019)

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