External diversity is restrained by internal conservatism: New nudibranch mollusc contributes to the cryptic species problemстатья
Статья опубликована в высокорейтинговом журнале
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Дата последнего поиска статьи во внешних источниках: 6 сентября 2017 г.
Аннотация:Cryptic species are an important concept of modern biodiversity studies and a potentialbasis for immensely increasing the amount of biological diversity worldwide;however, the conceptual grounds of cryptic species still need to be refined. Here,using a remarkable example from marine invertebrates, the case of a species complexof common large-sized nudibranchs of the genus Dendronotus in European waters ispresented, which is relevant for the ongoing cryptic species discussion. Based onextensive sampling in the seas of Northern Hemisphere from United Kingdom to theSea of Japan, a morphological and molecular framework is constructed for understandingthe diversity of European Dendronotus nudibranchs. The present study discoverednotable multilevel character diversity within the common Dendronotus“frondosus” species complex. This implies the highest degree of variation of externalcharacters with parallel colour patterns among different species and significantlyconstrained conservatism of internal characters. The molecular data are congruentwith the stable differences in the internal features and confirm the presence of threedistinct species in this complex. While two species were already known, the thirdspecies is evidently new, based on morphological and molecular evidence and isdescribed here as Dendronotus europaeus sp. n. In the light of multilevel characterdiversity, the general problem of plausibility of the distinction and practical usage ofthe terms “cryptic” and “pseudocryptic” species is discussed.