Evolutionary Biology and Ecology, CP 160/12, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50, 1050 Brussels, Belgium; Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 117543 Singapore, Singapore.
Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2013 Dec;69(3):694-703. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2013.07.007. Epub 2013 Jul 24.
Species boundaries are traditionally inferred using morphological characters, although morphology sometimes fails to correctly delineate species. To overcome this limitation, researchers have widely taken advantage of alternative methods such as DNA barcoding or analysis of cuticular hydrocarbons (CHs) profiles, but rarely use them simultaneously in an iterative taxonomic approach. Here, we follow such an approach using morphology, DNA barcoding and CHs profiles to precisely discriminate species of soldierless termites, a diversified clade constituting about one-third of the Neotropical termite species richness, but poorly resolved taxonomically due to the paucity of useful characters. We sampled soldierless termites in various forest types of the Nouragues Nature Reserve, French Guiana. Our results show that morphological species determination generally matches DNA barcoding, which only suggests the existence of three cryptic species in the 31 morphological species. Among them, Longustitermes manni is the only species whose splitting is corroborated by ecological data, other widely distributed species being supported by DNA barcoding. On the contrary, although CHs profiles provide a certain taxonomic signal, they often suggest inconsistent groupings which are not supported by other methods. Overall, our data support DNA barcoding and morphology as two efficient methods to distinguish soldierless termite species.
物种界限传统上是通过形态特征推断的，尽管形态特征有时无法正确划定物种界限。为了克服这一局限性，研究人员广泛利用替代方法，如 DNA 条形码或表皮碳氢化合物 (CHs) 图谱分析，但很少在迭代分类方法中同时使用它们。在这里，我们采用这种方法，使用形态学、DNA 条形码和 CHs 图谱来精确区分无兵白蚁的物种，无兵白蚁是一个多样化的分支，约占新热带白蚁物种丰富度的三分之一，但由于缺乏有用的特征，在分类学上处理得很差。我们在法属圭亚那的努拉格雷斯自然保护区的各种森林类型中对无兵白蚁进行了采样。我们的结果表明，形态学物种鉴定通常与 DNA 条形码相匹配，而 DNA 条形码仅表明在 31 种形态学物种中存在三种隐种。在这三种隐种中，Longustitermes manni 是唯一一种通过生态学数据证明其存在的物种，其他广泛分布的物种则得到 DNA 条形码的支持。相反，尽管 CHs 图谱提供了一定的分类学信号，但它们往往暗示出不一致的分组，这些分组得不到其他方法的支持。总体而言，我们的数据支持 DNA 条形码和形态学作为区分无兵白蚁物种的两种有效方法。
