Enguídanos García Alba, Galià-Camps Carles, Pérez-González Claudia Massiel, Víquez Dionora, Mateos Eduardo
Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio), University of Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Insects. 2024 Nov 30;15(12):951. doi: 10.3390/insects15120951.
Panama, located in the heart of the Mesoamerican hotspot, harbors an extraordinary species diversity across the Tree of Life. The Collembola species of the genus play an important role in soil biological processes such as decomposition, being used to monitor soil health and functional parameters. However, the limitation of morphological characters and molecular resources hampers the evaluation of local soil diversity. Here, using 30 specimens collected in the Parque Natural Metropolitano (PNM), we unravel the diversity of this Panamanian protected area through molecular tools and new taxonomic traits. Our phylogenies, in combination with species delimitation analyses, indicate that the PNM harbors an extremely rich community of species, two of them cited in Panama for the first time, and three of them potentially new to science. We highlight that the presence of the dental tubercle and pseudopores on the BP4 region are not monophyletic and, therefore, can be used as supplementary characters to morphologically resolve species complexes. Overall, this study sheds light on the richness of the PNM, which acts as a shelter for Panamanian and the Mesoamerican hotspot species.
巴拿马位于中美洲热点地区的中心，在整个生命之树上拥有非凡的物种多样性。该属的弹尾目物种在土壤生物过程（如分解）中发挥着重要作用，被用于监测土壤健康和功能参数。然而，形态特征和分子资源的局限性阻碍了对当地土壤多样性的评估。在这里，我们使用在大都会自然公园（PNM）收集的30个标本，通过分子工具和新的分类特征揭示了这个巴拿马保护区的多样性。我们的系统发育分析，结合物种界定分析，表明PNM拥有极其丰富的物种群落，其中两个首次在巴拿马被提及，三个可能是科学界新发现的。我们强调，BP4区域上的齿瘤和假孔的存在并非单系的，因此，可以用作形态学上解决物种复合体的补充特征。总体而言，这项研究揭示了PNM的丰富性，它是巴拿马和中美洲热点地区物种的庇护所。
