Eight new provincial species records of mayflies (Ephemeroptera) from one Arctic watershed river in British Columbia

• Main Authors: Huber, Dezene P.W., Shrimpton, Claire M., Erasmus, Daniel J.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: PeerJ 2018
• Subjects: Arctic; Crooked River
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26461; https://peerj.com/preprints/26461.pdf; https://peerj.com/preprints/26461.xml; https://peerj.com/preprints/26461.html

We repeatedly sampled eight sites on the Crooked River in British Columbia’s Arctic watershed for adult and nymph mayflies (Ephemeroptera) over the course of two years. Using taxonomic keys and DNA-barcoding we report eight new species records for the province. These are five Baetidae ( Acerpenna pygmaea , Baetis phoebus , Baetis vernus , Iswaeon anoka , and Procloeon pennulatum ), one Heptageniidae ( Leucrocuta hebe ), one Leptohyphidae ( Tricorythodes mosegus ), and one Siphlonuridae ( Siphlonurus alternatus ). Three of these – Acerpenna , Iswaeon , and Leucrocuta – are also new genus records for the province. In total we detected 40 species in eight families as indicated by clustering into BINs (Barcode Index Numbers), by morphological keys, and by matches in the Barcode of Life Database. One of those species, Ameletus vernalis , is of conservation concern. Our analysis indicated that a number of other specimens may represent new species or genus records for BC. In addition this unique and anthropogenically impacted river may contain cryptic species of Baetis tricaudatus (Baetidae), Leptophlebia nebulosa (Leptophlebiidae), and Paraleptophlebia debilis (Leptophlebiidae).