Return of the prodigal son: morphology and molecular phylogenetic relationships of a new Antarctic fish leech (Hirudinea: Piscicolidae) imply a bipolar biogeographic pattern ...

• Main Authors: Utevsky, Andriy, Utevsky, Serge, Cichocka, Joanna M., Bielecki, Aleksander, Santoro, Mario, Trontelj, Peter
• Format: Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Taylor & Francis 2023
• Subjects: Microbiology; FOS Biological sciences; Genetics; Molecular Biology; Evolutionary Biology; Environmental Sciences not elsewhere classified; Ecology; Science Policy; Biological Sciences not elsewhere classified; Developmental Biology; Inorganic Chemistry; FOS Chemical sciences; Plant Biology; Antarc*; Antarctic; Arctic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24118329; https://tandf.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Return_of_the_prodigal_son_morphology_and_molecular_phylogenetic_relationships_of_a_new_Antarctic_fish_leech_Hirudinea_Piscicolidae_imply_a_bipolar_biogeographic_pattern/24118329

The bipolar distribution of fish leeches (Piscicolidae) has been considered and discussed by leech biologists for a long time. All cases of putative bipolar ranges of related taxa that occur in cold and temperate waters of both hemispheres and are absent in the tropics have been morphology-based hypotheses. Here, we present, for the first time, an instance of bipolar distribution substantiated by morphological and molecular data. The latter include the mitochondrial genes 12S rRNA, COI , ND1 and tRNA Leu, and the nuclear 28S rRNA. A new genus and species of Antarctic piscicolids, Austroplatybdellina prodiga , is described. The new leech was part of a Boreal-Arctic monophyletic group that is informally called ‘classic platybdellins’. That clade is the core of the non-monophyletic subfamily Platybdellinae. Austroplatybdellina prodiga gen. nov. sp. nov. was further classified as a member of a monophyletic group along with two Boreal genera, Crangonobdella and Beringobdella , which share a number of ...