Abstract
The Australian wolf spider genus Tftralycosa Roewer, 1960, with Lycosa meracula Simon, 1909 (junior synonym of Lycosa oraria L. Koch, 1877) as type species, is revised to include 13 species, eight of which are described as new here: Tetralycosa adarca sp. nov., T. alteripa (McKay, 1976), T. arabanae Framenau, Gotch & Austin, 2006, T. baudinettei sp. nov., T. caudex sp. nov., T. eyrei (Hickman, 1944), T. floundersi sp. nov., T. halophila sp. nov., T. oraria (L. Koch, 1876), T. orariola sp. nov., T. williamsi sp. nov., T. wundurra (McKay, 1979) comb. nov. and T. rebecca sp. nov. Members of Tetralycosa are halotolerant, exclusively inhabiting saline environments such as coastal beaches, and mound springs, clay pans and salt lakes in the Australian interior. A phylogenetic analysis of the genus identified a monophyletic clade of eight species that live permanently on the barren surface of salt lakes suggesting a single radiation into this extremely inhospitable habitat. Some of these Tetralycosa species are currently known from single salt lakes only and with increasing disturbances of these systems by mining, agriculture and recreational use, research effort should be increased to study their ecology and conservation status.
Highlights
The wolf spider genus Tetralycosa Roewer, 1960, with the type species Lycosa meracula Simon, 1909, was initially listed as nomen nudum (Roewer 1955) and subsequently diagnosed based on somaticEuropean Journal of Taxonomy 335: 1–72 (2017)characters, i.e., the number of retromarginal cheliceral teeth and the arrangement of the eyes (Roewer 1960). McKay (1973) listed the species in Lycorma Simon, 1885, following Guy (1966) who considered Tetralycosa a subgenus of Lycorma
We present a phylogenetic hypothesis based on morphological data to test if the salt lake environment was invaded more than once in the evolutionary history of this heterogeneous genus, as our taxonomic treatment initially suggested three distinct lineages: spiders apparently related to T. oraria inhabit beaches, samphire flats and the periphery of mound springs and two lineages only occur on the playa of salt lakes; one associated with T. alteripa found in Western Australia and South Australia and one with T. eyrei found in South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria
The phylogenetic analysis resulted in a single most parsimonious tree (L = 71, Ci = 61, Ri = 80) (Fig. 4A– B). This topology supports the monophyly of Tetralycosa within our selection of taxa based on three synapomorphies, the short curved tegular apophysis, a channel in the terminal apophysis that forms a shaft to guide the embolus (20), and the presence of a median septum that is wider than long (28)
Summary
The wolf spider genus Tetralycosa Roewer, 1960, with the type species Lycosa meracula Simon, 1909, was initially listed as nomen nudum (Roewer 1955) and subsequently diagnosed based on somaticEuropean Journal of Taxonomy 335: 1–72 (2017)characters, i.e., the number of retromarginal cheliceral teeth and the arrangement of the eyes (Roewer 1960). McKay (1973) listed the species in Lycorma Simon, 1885, following Guy (1966) who considered Tetralycosa a subgenus of Lycorma. The wolf spider genus Tetralycosa Roewer, 1960, with the type species Lycosa meracula Simon, 1909, was initially listed as nomen nudum (Roewer 1955) and subsequently diagnosed based on somatic. In numerous recent studies, somatic characters such as eye patterns or number of cheliceral teeth have been shown to be of limited value in wolf spider systematics (e.g., Dondale 1986; Zyuzin 1993; Vink 2002; Framenau 2006a, 2006b, 2007; Framenau & Baehr 2007; Langlands & Framenau 2010; Piacentini 2014). An allozyme study of Australian wolf spiders inhabiting salt lakes suggested the existence of at least one cryptic sister species for both T. alteripa and T. eyrei, and highly heterogeneous sub-structuring within both species complexes did not exclude the possibility of further speciation (Hudson & Adams 1996)
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