Evolutionary history and drivers of diversification of the Mediterranean Nemesiidae spiders (Araneae, Mygalomorphae) = Història evolutiva i mecanismes de diversificació en aranyes mediterrànies de la familia Nemesiidae (Araneae, Mygalomorphae) = Historia evolutiva y mecanismos de diversificación en arañas mediterráneas de la familia Nemesiidae (Araneae, Mygalomorphae)

• Main Author: Mora de Checa, Elisa
• Other Authors: Arnedo Lombarte, Miquel Àngel, Universitat de Barcelona. Departament de Biologia Animal
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universitat de Barcelona 2015
• Subjects: Aranyes; Arañas; Spiders; Evolució (Biologia); Evolución (Biología); Evolution (Biology); Mediterrània (Regió); Mediterráneo (Región); Mediterranean Region; Ciències Experimentals i Matemàtiques; 59; Burrows; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/385617

Mygalomorphs is a cosmopolitan group that inhabits all the continents except Antarctica. The group and has been commonly described as ‘primitive’ because of the retention of plesiomorphic characters, such as the presence of four book lungs and chelicerae bearing longitudinal fangs with unsynchronized movement. Those spiders have a cryptic lifestyle. They are nocturnal, ground-dwellers and construct buried silk burrows that are hidden by a closing a trapdoor. Females are mostly sedentary, long-lived, and they live in the burrow their whole life, whereas adult males have annual life cycles, and spread after the first mault searching for mates and mediate gene flow among populations. The low vagility, the long-life cycles, the narrow ecological preferences and the species restricted distribution makes mygalomorphs an excellent model system for biogeographic studies (Hedin et al. 2013; Raven 1980). This is due to the fact that ancient lineages with narrow habitat preferences and poor dispersal abilities are more likely to mirror the fingerprint of geological history (Stock, 1993; Bauzà-Ribot, 2013). Previous molecular studies indicate that they have extreme geographic structure. Low vagility has largely been cited as the main reason for the high level of local endemism in mygalomorph populations and species. Most of the closely related taxa are usually morphologically homogeneous and conserved (Bond & Hedin 2006). Diagnostic characters for species taxonomy are based on reproductive organs of adult males, but adults males spreads in a very concrete period of the year, that may vary depending on the environmental conditions, so the predominant sex obtained by direct capture are females o juveniles. This make extremely complicated the species identification because most of the taxonomic descriptions are old, inaccurate and based only on males, besides that females are unknown in most cases. There are six mygalomorph families present in the Western Mediterranean; the most diverse is the family Nemesidae , specially ...