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Systematics, phylogeny and biogeography
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Naming species with no morphological indicators: species status of Galeolaria caespitosa (Annelida : Serpulidae) inferred from nuclear and mitochondrial gene sequences and morphology

Magdalena N. Halt A E , Elena K. Kupriyanova A D , Steven J. B. Cooper A B and Greg W. Rouse C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia.

B Evolutionary Biology Unit, South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.

C Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0202, USA.

D Present address: Faculty of Education and Human Sciences, Yokohama National University, Tokiwadai, Hodogaya, Yokohama 240-8501, Japan.

E Corresponding author. Email: magdalena.halt@adelaide.edu.au

Invertebrate Systematics 23(3) 205-222 https://doi.org/10.1071/IS09003
Submitted: 19 January 2009  Accepted: 25 May 2009   Published: 21 July 2009

Abstract

Galeolaria caespitosa Lamarck, 1818 is an endemic, gregarious serpulid annelid, ubiquitous along the intertidal zone of southern Australia, occurring from Queensland to Western Australia. We sampled specimens across this range and utilised morphological features and sequences of mitochondrial (cytochrome-b) and nuclear (ITS2) markers to assess the taxonomic status of this morphospecies. No taxonomically significant morphological differences were observed across the range of G. caespitosa. However, the molecular data revealed the existence of the following two well supported clades that were also geographically concordant for the two markers: an eastern clade, consisting of New South Wales and southern Queensland samples, and a south-western group that encompassed samples from the rest of its range. The minimum pairwise distance between members of the two groups was more than 24% for cytochrome-b, with a maximum of 1% within-group variation. In addition, analysis of molecular variation showed a high proportion (97%) of the total variation distributed among the two groups, indicative of long-term isolation of the two clades. These results suggest that G. caespitosa comprises at least two cryptic species. Here, we discuss the merits of naming new Galeolaria species, given there were no consistent morphological differences detectable and the absence of details on the type locality for G. caespitosa. We conclude that a new species of Galeolaria is warranted and describe it here as G. gemineoa.


Acknowledgements

This research was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award and CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research postgraduate scholarship to MNH, and an Australian Research Council grant to GWR. The authors gratefully acknowledge the help with specimen collection from R. S. Wilson (VIC), M. Capa (SYD), P. D. Rask Møller (TAS) and N.G. Wilson (WA, SYD, QLD). We thank F. Pleijel for helping locate and translate manuscripts and records, H. ten Hove for helpful advice and access to his extensive literature on serpulids, B. G. M. Jamieson for the kind permission to reproduce the image of a G. caespitosa aggregation, G. Edgecombe for access to the Craterostigmus manuscript, T. Laperousaz for assistance with archiving, C. Driesener for assistance with SPSS and K. Saint for technical support with the molecular analyses. We are grateful to R. Ward for his helpful comments on the manuscript and support of the study, and to two anonymous reviewers and J. Waters for their helpful suggestions to improve this manuscript.


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