Abstract
The aims of the study were (i) to reveal the pattern of phylogeny of Pseudamnicola inhabiting the Aegean Islands, (ii) to describe and analyse the variation of the morphology in 17 populations of Pseudamnicola from the springs on the Aegean Islands not studied so far and considering also another seven populations studied earlier and (iii) to find out which model is more applicable to the island Pseudamnicola populations: either a model in which a relict fauna rich in endemics is differentiated in a way that mainly reflects the geological history of the area or a model in which a relatively young fauna is composed of more or less widely distributed taxa, with relatively high levels of gene flow among the springs they inhabit. To address the above issues, the morphology and the mitochondrial genes—cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) and ribosomal 16S—and nuclear genes—ribosomal 18S, 28S and histone 3 (H3)—were analysed. COI and COI+16S rRNA+18S datasets gave trees with identical topology in both ML and Bayesian inference. The 24 studied populations of Pseudamnicola form 16 clades, each of them generally having low levels of intrapopulation genetic differentiation. The generalised mixed Yule coalescent (GMYC) procedure and the Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD) analysis for COI identified 16 Pseudamnicola entities coinciding with clades of the ML tree based on 44 haplotypes and 189 sequences. The present pattern of diversity, together with dating of divergence time, reflects a short story of colonisation/recolonisation, supported by the Late Pleistocene land bridges, rather than the consequences of earlier geological events. The principal component analysis (PCA) on the shells of the molecularly distinct clades showed differences, although variability ranges often overlap. Female reproductive organs showed no differences between the clades, and penile characters differed only in some cases.
Highlights
The history of the Mediterranean Basin is complex as a result of (i) tectonic events, e.g. the northward movement of the African tectonic plate and the eastward displacement of the Anatolian microplate; (ii) volcanic activity, e.g. the creation of new islands; and (iii) several climatic changes that caused sea level fluctuations, such as those that occurred during the glacial/interglacial periods of the Pleistocene
The aims of the present study were (i) to reveal, using molecular markers, the pattern of phylogeny of Pseudamnicola inhabiting the Aegean Islands; (ii) to describe and analyse the variation of the morphology of the shell and anatomical characters from 17 populations of Pseudamnicola from the Aegean Islands; and (iii) to find out which of the two models is more applicable to the island Pseudamnicola populations: either a model in which a relict fauna rich in endemics is differentiated in a way that mainly reflects the geological history of the area or a model in which a relatively young fauna is composed of more or less widely distributed taxa, with relatively high levels of gene flow among the springs they inhabit
We obtained 151 new sequences of cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) (552 bp, GenBank Accession numbers KT710595 - KT710735), with the ones from GenBank (Table 1)
Summary
The history of the Mediterranean Basin is complex as a result of (i) tectonic events, e.g. the northward movement of the African tectonic plate and the eastward displacement of the Anatolian microplate; (ii) volcanic activity, e.g. the creation of new islands; and (iii) several climatic changes that caused sea level fluctuations, such as those that occurred during the glacial/interglacial periods of the Pleistocene. These events may significantly influence divergence in species richness and dispersion through the creation of favourable conditions for allopatric speciation by, for example, submergence and reemergence of landmasses. The genus Pseudamnicola Paulucci, 1878, contains species found in the Netherlands, Spain, France, Italy, the southern Balkans, Romania, Turkey and Cyprus, but the systematics of this group is poorly understood
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