Department of Animal Productions, University of Tuscia, Via Camillo de Lellis snc, 01100, Viterbo, Italy.
Mol Ecol. 2010 Jan;19(2):386-400. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04457.x. Epub 2009 Dec 14.
The North-Western Mediterranean basin is well known for its high number of relictual endemic taxa, and has been indicated as one of the world's major biodiversity hotspots at the species level. A possible contributing factor may be long-term persistence of populations and their prolonged stability. This study was designed to investigate the phylogeographic structure of three common species of the genus Lepidocyrtus (Hexapoda: Collembola), soil-dwelling arthropods characterized by limited dispersal capabilities and generally associated with forest habitats. We observed a remarkable geographic structure, with numerous deeply divergent genetic lineages occupying islands as well as mainland sites with no apparent gene flow among most sites, even across distances of only tens of kilometres. The reconstructed time frame for the evolution of these lineages suggests divergence between 5 and 15 Ma. This indicates a remarkably ancient origin and long-term persistence of individual lineages over a fine geographic scale despite the occurrence of abrupt sea level and climatic fluctuations in the area. This further suggests that currently recognized morphological species might be a serious underestimation of the true springtail biodiversity within this region.
西北地中海盆地以其大量的残余特有分类群而闻名，并且已被确定为物种水平上的世界主要生物多样性热点之一。一个可能的促成因素可能是种群的长期存在及其长期稳定。本研究旨在调查三种常见的 Lepidocyrtus 属（六足纲：弹尾目）的系统地理结构，这些土壤栖息的节肢动物具有有限的扩散能力，通常与森林栖息地有关。我们观察到了显著的地理结构，许多深分歧的遗传谱系占据了岛屿以及大陆地点，大多数地点之间没有明显的基因流，即使距离只有几十公里。这些谱系进化的重建时间框架表明，分化发生在 5 到 15 百万年前。这表明尽管该地区发生了突然的海平面和气候波动，但个体谱系在精细的地理尺度上具有非常古老的起源和长期的持久性。这进一步表明，目前公认的形态物种可能严重低估了该地区真正的跳虫生物多样性。
