Diversity and phylogenetic community structure of ants along a Costa Rican elevational gradient

Smith, M. Alex; Hallwachs, Winnie; Janzen, Daniel H.

doi:10.1111/j.1600-0587.2013.00631.x

Cited by 90 publications

(141 citation statements)

References 81 publications

(140 reference statements)

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“…2) is well confirmed by the army ant phylogeny of Brady (2003). However, L. praedator was not included in this phylogeny, and shows strong intraspecific sequence divergence, especially among the 490 bp barcoding fragments of recently published lineages (Smith et al 2014) from Costa Rica (Fig. 3).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 48%

“…Average divergence is also 9.7 % among all included Labidus species, and 11.7 % among all species (excluding the outgroup, D. nigricans). In the barcoding phylogeny of our sequences and those of several formally undescribed Costa Rican Labidus lineages, retrieved from Smith et al (2014), colonies Cac2, Tap and TC cluster together as sister group of L. sp. JTL-001, while colony Cac1 is much closer related to the lineages L. sp.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3). For the MAS variants from Smith et al (2014), no morphological descriptions exist so far. However, the present study did not intend to cover the entire spectrum of morphological and genetic variance in L. praedator.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additional sequencing of the coxI genetic barcoding region with the primers LepF/LepR (Hebert et al 2004;Smith et al 2014) yielded multiple peaks in the sequence chromatograms of colonies Cac2, Tap and TC indicating nuclear pseudogenes (Bensasson et al 2001) of this fragment. We, therefore, used our CI13/CI14 fragments, which partially overlap with the barcoding region, to achieve a final alignment of 490 bp with eight barcoding fragments from GenBank (Smith et al 2014) of L. praedator from Costa Rica, including variant JTL-001 and five more variants for which no morphological description is available yet.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We, therefore, used our CI13/CI14 fragments, which partially overlap with the barcoding region, to achieve a final alignment of 490 bp with eight barcoding fragments from GenBank (Smith et al 2014) of L. praedator from Costa Rica, including variant JTL-001 and five more variants for which no morphological description is available yet. Phylogenetic analyses were performed as described above (GTR + G = 0.32, partial deletion with 90 % site coverage cutoff), using L. spininodis as outgroup (13 sequences in total).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Genetic differentiation at species level in the Neotropical army ant Labidus praedator

2015

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The nomadic, swarm-raiding army ant Labidus praedator (Smith, 1858) is an important arthropod predator in the Neotropics with a strong ecological impact on invertebrate communities. However, despite its high abundance and ubiquity over a large distribution range, it received relatively little scientific attention. Moreover, the taxonomic status is confusing because some morphological descriptions point towards the co-occurrence of several distinct taxa which are lumped together as L. praedator in most classical keys. Yet, clarifying genetic studies are lacking. Here, we show strong genetic differentiation within an L. praedator population in Mexico. Both microsatellite genotype patterns and phylogenetic analyses (concatenated nuclear and mtDNA sequences, including the coxI genetic barcoding region), reveal the occurrence of two strongly isolated lineages. Colonies from the very same location, clearly identified as the same species (L. praedator) according to classical morphological keys, exhibit an extremely high average sequence divergence (9.7-12.8 %), which was well in the range of divergence among GenBank sequences from other Labidus species. Thus, our data very likely show genetic differentiation at species level or cryptic speciation within L. praedator, which should be recognized when investigating biodiversity and ecological importance of army ants (or other arthropods) in the Neotropics.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 48%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Genetic differentiation at species level in the Neotropical army ant Labidus praedator

2015

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Mind the gap! Integrating taxonomic approaches to assess ant diversity at the southern extreme of the Atlantic Forest

Hanisch

Lavinia

Suarez

et al. 2017

Ecology and Evolution

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Understanding patterns of species diversity relies on accurate taxonomy which can only be achieved by long‐term natural history research and the use of complementary information to establish species boundaries among cryptic taxa. We used DNA barcoding to characterize the ant diversity of Iguazú National Park (INP), a protected area of the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest ecoregion, located at the southernmost extent of this forest. We assessed ant diversity using both cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) sequences and traditional morphological approaches, and compared the results of these two methods. We successfully obtained COI sequences for 312 specimens belonging to 124 species, providing a DNA barcode reference library for nearly 50% of the currently known ant fauna of INP. Our results support a clear barcode gap for all but two species, with a mean intraspecific divergence of 0.72%, and an average congeneric distance of 17.25%. Congruently, the library assembled here was useful for the discrimination of the ants of INP and allowed us to link unidentified males and queens to their worker castes. To detect overlooked diversity, we classified the DNA barcodes into Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTUs) using three different clustering algorithms, and compared their number and composition to that of reference species identified based on morphology. The MOTU count was always higher than that of reference species regardless of the method, suggesting that the diversity of ants at INP could be between 6% and 10% higher than currently recognized. Lastly, our survey contributed with 78 new barcode clusters to the global DNA barcode reference library, and added 36 new records of ant species for the INP, being 23 of them new citations for Argentina.

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Evolution of a key trait greatly affects underground community assembly process through habitat adaptation in earthworms

Ikeda

Fukumori

Shoda‐Kagaya

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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Underground community assemblies have not been studied well compared with aboveground communities, despite their importance for our understanding of whole ecosystems. To investigate underground community assembly over evolutionary timescales, we examined terrestrial earthworm communities (Oligochaeta: Haplotaxida) in conserved mountainous primary forests in Japan as a model system. We collected 553 earthworms mostly from two dominant families, the Megascolecidae and the Lumbricidae, from 12 sites. We constructed a molecular taxonomic unit tree based on the analysis of three genes to examine the effects of a biogeographic factor (dispersal ability) and an evolutionary factor (habitat adaptation) on the earthworm community assembly process. The phylogenetic distance of the earthworm communities among sites was positively correlated with geographic distance when intraspecific variation was included, indicating that the divergence within species was affected by biogeographic factors. The community assembly process in the Megascolecidae has also been affected by environmental conditions in relation to an evolutionary relationship between habitat environment and intestinal cecum type, a trait closely related to habitat depth and diet, whereas that in the Lumbricidae has not been affected as such. Intestinal cecum type showed a pattern of niche conservatism in the Megascolecidae lineage. Our results suggest that investigating the evolution of a key trait related to life history can lead to the clear description of community assembly process over a long timescale and that the community assembly process can differ greatly among related lineages even though they live sympatrically.

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Diversity and phylogenetic community structure of ants along a Costa Rican elevational gradient

Cited by 90 publications

References 81 publications

Genetic differentiation at species level in the Neotropical army ant Labidus praedator

Genetic differentiation at species level in the Neotropical army ant Labidus praedator

Mind the gap! Integrating taxonomic approaches to assess ant diversity at the southern extreme of the Atlantic Forest

Evolution of a key trait greatly affects underground community assembly process through habitat adaptation in earthworms

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