Diversity of Pholcus Spiders (Araneae: Pholcidae) in China's Luliang Mountains: An Integrated Morphological and Molecular Approach.

ABSTRACT: Spiders of the genus Pholcus were collected for the first time during an expedition to the Lüliang Mountains in Shanxi Province, North China. Phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequence data from COI, H3, wnt, and 28S genes allowed us to group them into nine well-supported clades. We used morphology and four methods of molecular species delimitation, namely Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD), the Generalized Mixed Yule Coalescent (GMYC), Bayesian Poisson Tree Processes (bPTP), and Bayesian Phylogenetics and Phylogeography (BPP), to investigate species boundaries. These integrative taxonomic analyses identified the nine clades as nine distinct species, comprising Pholcus luya Peng & Zhang, 2013 and eight other species new to science: Pholcus jiaocheng sp. nov., Pholcus

SUBMITTER: Zhao FY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10141095 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature