Abstract
The Balkan Peninsula is inhabited by the worldwide most diverse subterranean gastropod fauna. This fauna is still poorly studied, since its habitats are not easily accessible, and its sampled populations are mostly not rich in specimens’ numbers. Often only empty shells are known, but the shell is hardly useful, not only in phylogeny reconstruction, but even in species determination. The exclusively obligatory subterranean family Moitessieriidae is especially poorly studied. Representatives of the genus Paladilhiopsis Pavlović, 1913 (Moitessieriidae) collected at three localities, distributed in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, were studied. The pigmentation of their shells and soft parts, as well as the female and male reproductive organs in one taxon, are presented. The partial sequences of the molecular markers mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) and nuclear histone 3 (H3) were used to infer their systematic status and phylogenetic relationships. Two species new to science are described. For one of them, also studied anatomically, 15 specimens were sequenced for COI, and all show the same haplotype.
Highlights
Gastropods are an important component of the subterranean fauna (Culver 2012), but are still poorly studied (e.g., Culver and Pipan 2009, 2014)
Of the approximately 20,000 worldwide species of subterranean animals (Culver and Pipan 2009), there are more than 350 described species of stygobiont gastropods, 97% of them belong to the Hydrobiidae sensu lato (Bernasconi and Riedel 1994; Culver 2012), representing several families belonging to the Truncatelloidea (Criscione and Ponder 2013)
(Hofman et al 2018) we confirmed the anatomy of the female reproductive organs of Paladilhiopsis, but our molecular data definitely proved rather distant phylogenetic relationships between Paladilhiopsis and Bythiospeum, unequivocally classifying this morphological similarity as a homoplasy, certainly not a synapomorphy
Summary
Gastropods are an important component of the subterranean fauna (Culver 2012), but are still poorly studied (e.g., Culver and Pipan 2009, 2014). (Hofman et al 2018) we confirmed the anatomy of the female reproductive organs of Paladilhiopsis, but our molecular data definitely proved rather distant phylogenetic relationships between Paladilhiopsis and Bythiospeum, unequivocally classifying this morphological similarity (of very simple structures) as a homoplasy, certainly not a synapomorphy. Continued field collection, applying the Bou-Rouch technique for collection of interstitial gastropods, resulted in some new Paladilhiopsis, which were checked for molecular markers. Their phylogenetic position, applying the shell, soft parts morphology (if the material was available) and molecular distinctness and relationships are the subject of the present paper
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