Bosminopsis deitersi (Crustacea: Cladocera) as an ancient species group: a revision

Petr G Garibian; Dmitry P Karabanov; Anna N Neretina; Derek J Taylor; Alexey A Kotov

doi:10.7717/peerj.11310

Bosminopsis deitersi (Crustacea: Cladocera) as an ancient species group: a revision

PeerJ. 2021 Apr 23:9:e11310. doi: 10.7717/peerj.11310. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Petr G Garibian^#¹, Dmitry P Karabanov², Anna N Neretina¹, Derek J Taylor³, Alexey A Kotov^#¹

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology and Invasions, A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
² Laboratory of Fish Ecology, I.D. Papanin Institute for Biology of Inland Waters of Russian Academy of Sciences, Borok, Yaroslavl Area, Russia.
³ Department of Biological Sciences, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, United States.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Water fleas (Crustacea: Cladocera) of the Family Bosminidae have been studied since the founding of paleolimnology and freshwater ecology. However, one species, Bosminopsis deitersi, stands out for its exceptional multicontinental range and broad ecological requirements. Here we use an integrated morphological and multilocus genetic approach to address the species problem in B. deitersi. We analyzed 32 populations of B. deitersi s. lat. Two nuclear and two mitochondrial loci were used to carry out the bGMYC, mPTP and STACEY algorithms for species delimitation. Detailed morphological study was also carried out across continents. The evidence indicated a widely distributed cryptic species in the Old World (Bosminopsis zernowi) that is genetically divergent from B. deitersi s.str. We revised the taxonomy and redescribed the species in this complex. Our sampling indicated that B. zernowi had weak genetic differentiation across its range. A molecular clock and biogeographic analysis with fossil calibrations suggested a Mesozoic origin for the Bosminopsis deitersi group. Our evidence rejects the single species hypothesis for B. deitersi and is consistent with an ancient species group (potentially Mesozoic) that shows marked morphological conservation. The family Bosminidae, then, has examples of both rapid morphological evolution (Holocene Bosmina), and morphological stasis (Bosminopsis).

Keywords: Cladocera; Eurasia; Molecular clock; Phylogeny; Phylogeography; Taxonomy.

Grants and funding

This study was supported exclusively by the Russian Science Foundation (grant no. 18-14-00325 for Petr G. Garibian, Dmitry P. Karabanov, Anna N. Neretina, and Alexey A. Kotov). Sampling in South Korea preceding the project was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Biological Resources (NIBR), funded by the Ministry of Environment (MOE) of the Republic of Korea for Alexey A. Kotov. Derek J. Taylor has no specific support. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.