Was Gordon Robilliard right? Integrative systematics suggests that Dendronotus diversicolor Robilliard, 1970 is a valid species

• Main Authors: Ekimova, Irina, Valdés, Ángel, Schepetov, Dimitry, Chichvarkhin, Anton
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: NRC Research Press (a division of Canadian Science Publishing) 2016
• Subjects: Pacific; Kamchatka
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/74382; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjz-2016-0096

Nudibranch molluscs of the genus Dendronotus Alder and Hancock, 1845 are widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere. Taxonomic studies on the genus Dendronotus have been problematic due to high variability in colour pattern in many species, as well as in external morphology and anatomy. In the present paper, we studied specimens of Dendronotus from northern Pacific presumably belonging to the species Dendronotus albus MacFarland, 1966. Molecular and morphological data revealed the existence of two distinct species among the material examined: D. albus, which has a wide range from Kamchatka and the Kurile Islands (from where we report this species for the first time) to California in North America, and the pseudo-cryptic species Dendronotus diversicolor Robilliard, 1970, which has been previously considered a junior synonym of D. albus. D. diversicolor occurs from California to British Columbia in sympatry with D. albus. D. albus and D. diversicolor can be clearly distinguished by colour pattern, internal and external morphology and molecular sequence data. Despite some similarities in radular and external morphology between D. albus and D. diversicolor, these two species are phylogenetically distant and belong to different clades within the genus Dendronotus which suggests convergent evolution. The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author.