Morphologically tortured: taxonomic placement of an Antarctic springtail (Collembola: Isotomidae) misguided by morphology and ecology

International audience An endemic springtail from northern Victoria Land, Antarctica, was recently moved from Desoria to the new genus Chionobora, erected for a new species C. amila from lakes in the central highland plateau of Tasmania. This new combination for klovstadi was based on characters sim...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Zoologica Scripta
Main Author: D'Haese, Cyrille
Other Authors: Mécanismes Adaptatifs et Evolution (MECADEV), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02378718
https://doi.org/10.1111/zsc.12204
Description
Summary:International audience An endemic springtail from northern Victoria Land, Antarctica, was recently moved from Desoria to the new genus Chionobora, erected for a new species C. amila from lakes in the central highland plateau of Tasmania. This new combination for klovstadi was based on characters similar to both species (although not definitive) and an apparent preference for aquatic habitats. Here we show that neither of these inferences are valid. We sampled from two lake localities to obtain C. amila, and in doing so, we describe its habitat as riparian, not aquatic. We compared specimens of C. amila with klovstadi within a phylogeny using three genes (mtDNA COI, 18S rDNA, D1-D5 of 28S rDNA) for 59 Isotominae terminals. We show that klovstadi is not closely related to the genus Chionobora that has closest affinities to the genus Isotomurus. As previously identified, klovstadi has no close affinities to any existing genus in Isotominae. Based on additional ecological, morphological and molecular evidence, we erect a new genus for klovstadi, Kaylathalia gen. n.