Wang Jin, Yang Jingbo, Zeng Xuegang, Li Weichun
College of Agronomy, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, 330045, China.
BMC Zool. 2022 May 23;7(1):26. doi: 10.1186/s40850-022-00120-1.
The sky-island Ligidium species fauna in southwest China is poorly known. Before this study, six of the seven sky-island species of the genus were known to be endemic to southwest China. In morphology, Ligidium species are often difficult to identify, and an appraisal of integrative taxonomy is needed.
We integrated morphology and molecular analyses to delimit Ligidium species. Molecular species delimitation based on distance- and evolutionary models recovered seven-candidate lineages from five gene markers (COI, 12S rRNA, 18S rRNA, 28S rRNA and NAK). We also estimated that the species divergences of sky-island Ligidium in southwest China started in late Eocene (40.97 Mya) to middle Miocene (15.19 Mya). Four new species (L. duospinatum Li, sp. nov., L. acuminatum Li, sp. nov., L. rotundum Li, sp. nov. and L. tridentatum Li, sp. nov.) are described. Morphological confusion among L. denticulatum Shen, 1949, L. inerme Nunomura & Xie, 2000 and L. sichuanense Nunomura, 2002 is clarified by integrative taxonomy.
This work confirms that an integrative approach to Ligidium taxonomy is fundamental for objective classification, and deduced the uplift of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in the late Eocene and middle Miocene as one of the principal reasons for the species divergences of sky-island Ligidium in southwest China. We also inferred that sky-island mountains have a huge reserve of higher Ligidium species diversity.
中国西南部天空岛屿的拟地甲物种群鲜为人知。在本研究之前,该属的七种天空岛屿物种中有六种已知为中国西南部特有。在形态学上,拟地甲物种通常难以鉴定,需要进行综合分类学评估。
我们整合了形态学和分子分析来界定拟地甲物种。基于距离和进化模型的分子物种界定从五个基因标记(COI、12S rRNA、18S rRNA、28S rRNA和NAK)中识别出七个候选谱系。我们还估计,中国西南部天空岛屿拟地甲的物种分化始于始新世晚期(4097万年前)至中新世中期(1519万年前)。描述了四个新物种(双刺拟地甲Li,新种、尖突拟地甲Li,新种、圆形拟地甲Li,新种和三叉拟地甲Li,新种)。综合分类学澄清了1949年沈氏拟地甲、2000年无刺拟地甲和2002年四川拟地甲之间的形态学混淆。
这项工作证实,拟地甲分类学的综合方法是客观分类的基础,并推断出始新世晚期和中新世中期青藏高原的隆升是中国西南部天空岛屿拟地甲物种分化的主要原因之一。我们还推断,天空岛屿山脉拥有大量更高的拟地甲物种多样性储备。