Corresponding author: Olavi Kurina (
Academic editor: V. Blagoderov
Two new
Kurina O, Õunap E, Põldmaa K (2015) Two new
The genus
So far, alpha-taxonomy of fungus gnats has been carried out using traditional taxonomic methods, primarily morphological examination. Though in recent years nucleotide data have been implemented to address the phylogeny of this group (e.g.
The aim of this article is to publish taxonomic and faunistic information about Western Palaearctic
The examined material of two new species was collected from Estonia and Finland using Malaise traps, and from Lebanon by light trapping, respectively. The Estonian locality lies at the herb rich edge of a mixed forest (Fig.
Collecting localities of
All specimens were stored initially in ethyl alcohol within which parts of them – after studying under a stereomicroscope Leica S8APO – are still preserved. For more detailed study of male terminalia, they were detached and macerated in a 10% solution of KOH, followed by neutralization and washing in distilled water. The remaining chitinous parts were thereafter inserted into glycerine for study, including black and white illustrations, and preserved as glycerine preparations in polyethylene microvials (see also
The habitus photos have been made in an alcohol medium using a Canon 7D camera with a Canon MP-E65 (F2.8 1–5×) lens (see
The material is deposited in the Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences [former Institute of Zoology and Botany], Tartu, Estonia (IZBE), in the Zoological Museum, University of Turku, Finland (ZMUT) and in the personal collection of J. Salmela, Rovaniemi, Finland (JSPC).
The genomic DNA was extracted using High Pure PCR Template Preparation Kit (Roche Diagnostics GmbH, Mannheim, Germany). Anterior segments of the abdomen that had been stored after dissection of genitalia were crushed and used for the extraction. This process was carried out following the manufacturer’s instructions for extraction of genetic material from mammalian tissue.
In total, one mitochondrial and two nuclear markers were sequenced. A 658-bp ’barcoding’ fragment from close to the 5’ terminus of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome C oxidase subunit 1 (
Consensus sequences were created with Geneious R7 (Biomatters Ltd., Auckland, New Zealand) or Sequencher 5.1 (Gene Codes, Ann Arbor, MI, USA). Sequences were double-checked by eye and aligned using ClustalW (
For COI, a neighbour-joining tree implementing Kimura 2-parameter model (a standard model analysing DNA barcode data, see e.g.
For the concatenated dataset, data were first divided into three subsets according to the markers used (COI, 28S and ITS). Thereafter, PartitionFinder 1.1.1 (
The morphology of studied material distinguished three previously known species of
Sequencing the ‘barcode region’ of COI was successful for all specimens included in the current study. The success rate was lower for ITS2 and 28S rDNA, as all attempts to sequence 28S failed for one individual of
Neighbour-joining tree of the COI ’barcode’ region of
Voucher numbers, depositories and GenBank accession codes of studied
Species | Voucher No | Depository | COI | 28S | ITS2 |
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IZBE0200274 | IZBE |
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IZBE0200283 | IZBE |
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IZBE0200284 | IZBE |
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MYCE-JS-2013-0095 | ZMUT |
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IZBE0200286 | IZBE |
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× |
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IZBE0200285 | IZBE |
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MYCE-JS-2013-0235 | ZMUT |
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IZBE0200253 | IZBE |
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MYCE-NV-2013-0131 | ZMUT |
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IZBE0200250 | IZBE |
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IZBE0200255 | IZBE |
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IZBE0200262 | IZBE |
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Habitus of
Male terminalia of
Male terminalia of
Unknown.
The species is named after the type locality in Jabal Moussa Biosphere Reserve, Lebanon; the specific epithet is a noun in genitive case.
Male terminalia, dorsal view, tergite 9 removed.
GEORGIA. 2♂♂ 2♀♀, Surami,
Having been described from North Caucasus (Krasnodarsk region), the species has not been recorded since and the studied material represents the first records from Georgia. According to male terminalia the species is close to
SLOVAKIA. 1♂, NP Muránska planina, Murán 3.5 km NE, sweeping,
Head and thorax of
Male terminalia of
Male terminalia of
Male terminalia, dorsal view, tergite 9 removed.
Unknown.
The species is named in honour of Dr. Jukka Salmela, who kindly provided us the material collected from Finland.
Following the key by
FINLAND. 1♂, Lkor: Savukoski, Törmäoja, Malaise trap,
This is a widely distributed species in the Palaearctic region (
This study combines for the first time the results of morphological and molecular analyses for delineating species of fungus gnats. As a common practice in insect taxonomy, we relied on characters of male genitalia and the mitochondrial COI barcoding, respectively. In one case, however, these two types of data provided conflicting evidence for species delimitation in the fungus gnat genus
Taxonomic work on insects has mostly been carried out on the basis of morphological examination. In many cases where studying external characters fail to yield unequivocal results, genital morphology has been proven to be valuable source of additional information (
The situation with
In contrast to the failure of genetic markers to distinguish
The study was supported by the grants 9174 and 8583 of the Estonian Science Foundation by institutional research funding (IUT21-1, IUT20-30 and IUT20-33) of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence FIBIR). We are grateful to Dr. P. Vilkamaa (Helsinki, Finland) and Dr. J. Salmela (Turku, Finland) for providing material collected from Lebanon and Finland, respectively. Prof. T. Saigusa (Fukuoka, Japan) and Dr. J. Kjærandsen (Tromsø, Norway) are thanked for invaluable comments on the species. We are grateful to J. Kullberg (Helsinki, Finland) for collecting the material of