School of Biology and Center of Excellence in Phylogeny of living organisms, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
Departamento de Ecoloxía e Bioloxía Animal, Universidade de Vigo, E-Vigo, Spain.
PLoS One. 2019 Jan 30;14(1):e0208904. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0208904. eCollection 2019.
Lumbricidae taxonomy is vastly restricted by the morphological simplicity of earthworms and their lack of complex appendices. This has led to confusing results in the Lumbricidae classifications, which in turn, has hindered our ability to identify and assign new and cryptic species to the family. Here we propose the addition of a new Lumbricidae genus from the Zagros and Elburz Mountains of Iran, i.e. Philomontanus gen. nov, including three new species. Our taxonomic inferences were based on the phylogenetic analysis of two nuclear gene regions (28S rDNA and 18S rDNA) and 11 mitochondrial gene regions (16S rDNA, 12S rDNA, NADH dehydrogenase I, cytochrome oxidase subunits I and II and tRNAs Asn, Asp, Val, Leu, Ala and Ser). Philomontanus gen. nov comprises the earthworm species Philomontanus sarii sp. nov., Philomontanus mahmoudi sp. nov. and Philomontanus baloutchi sp. nov. These three species are morphologically similar to each other with only a few characters separating them (e.g. size, pigmentation and position of clitellum). Our findings support the adoption of an integrative approach including molecular information (e.g., DNA sequences) to aid earthworm classification and develop a robust taxonomy.
由于环节动物的形态简单且缺乏复杂的附肢，环节动物分类学受到了极大的限制。这导致了环节动物分类中令人困惑的结果，进而阻碍了我们识别和将新的和隐存物种分配到该科的能力。在这里，我们从伊朗扎格罗斯山脉和厄尔布尔士山脉提出了一个新的环节动物属，即 Philomontanus 属，包括三个新物种。我们的分类推断是基于两个核基因区域（28S rDNA 和 18S rDNA）和 11 个线粒体基因区域（16S rDNA、12S rDNA、NADH 脱氢酶 I、细胞色素氧化酶亚基 I 和 II 以及 tRNAs Asn、Asp、Val、Leu、Ala 和 Ser）的系统发育分析。Philomontanus 属由 Philomontanus sarii sp. nov.、Philomontanus mahmoudi sp. nov. 和 Philomontanus baloutchi sp. nov. 这三个物种组成。这些三个物种彼此形态相似，只有少数特征将它们分开（例如大小、色素沉着和生殖带的位置）。我们的发现支持采用综合方法，包括分子信息（例如 DNA 序列）来辅助环节动物分类和发展稳健的分类学。
