Molecular phylogeny of ten intertidal hermit crabs of the genus Pagurus inferred from multiple mitochondrial genes, with special emphasis on the evolutionary relationship of Pagurus lanuginosus and Pagurus maculosus.

Abstract

The hermit crab genus Pagurus exhibits high species diversity and a wide geological distribution. Despite the high species diversity of hermit crabs in the western Pacific coast of Japan, molecular phylogenetic studies of these species have yet to be conducted. To investigate their molecular phylogeny and genetic diversity, we obtained nearly complete mitochondrial genome sequences for ten Pagurus species found along the Pacific coast of Japan by next-generation sequencing, which were compared to other congeners deposited in the GenBank database. The genomes ranged from 13,458 to 16,401 base pairs in length, possessing 13 protein-coding genes, 2 rRNAs, and 22 tRNA genes. Based on the reconstructed phylogeny, we found that (1) Japanese Pagurus species separated into three groups, nested within the Northern Pacific species. (2) Pagurus lanuginosus and Pagurus maculosus, showed high morphological similarities, implying close kinship. Indeed, these two species were genetically closest to each other, compared to the remaining species studied. (3) An unspecified specimen sampled from the deep sea, which morphologically resembled Pagurus, might be a member of the Pagurus genus, but is genetically distant from the other Japanese Pagurus species. The novel data reported here may provide new perspectives for systematic studies of hermit crabs; these results provide important information that will facilitate population-level research and identifying intraspecific variation of these non-model, but ecologically important, decapod species.