Delimiting species of Protaphorura (Collembola: Onychiuridae): integrative evidence based on morphology, DNA sequences and geography.

ABSTRACT: Species delimitation remains a significant challenge when the diagnostic morphological characters are limited. Integrative taxonomy was applied to the genus Protaphorura (Collembola: Onychiuridae), which is one of most difficult soil animals to distinguish taxonomically. Three delimitation approaches (morphology, molecular markers and geography) were applied providing rigorous species validation criteria with an acceptably low error rate. Multiple molecular approaches, including distance- and evolutionary model-based methods, were used to determine species boundaries based on 144 standard barcode sequences. Twenty-two molecular putative species were consistently recovered across molecular and geographical analyses. Geographic criteria were was proved to be an efficient delimitation method

SUBMITTER: Sun X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5557941 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature