Chironomus suwai, a New Species of the plumosus Group (Diptera, Chironomidae) from Japan

DNA barcoding supports reclassification of JapaneseChironomusspecies (Diptera: Chironomidae)

“…Previous karyological studies of the C. plumosus group in Siberia and the Far East of Russia have indicated that it is possible that the eastern border of the C. plumosus range passes through the Chita region, and C. borokensis replaces C. plumosus in more eastern areas such as the Amursk, Khabarovsk and Primorsk regions of Russia (Golygina et al . ; VV Golygina, unpubl. data, 2011).…”

“…Interestingly, C. plumosus sampled in Korea and identified on the basis of imago male morphology formed a clade with C. borokensis sampled in Russia and identified by karyological analysis. Previous karyological studies of the C. plumosus group in Siberia and the Far East of Russia have indicated that it is possible that the eastern border of the C. plumosus range passes through the Chita region, and C. borokensis replaces C. plumosus in more eastern areas such as the Amursk, Khabarovsk and Primorsk regions of Russia (Golygina et al 2003;VV Golygina, unpubl. data, 2011).…”

“…On the other hand, cytological studies of Oh-yusurika described two new species that are morphologically close to C. plumosus found in other countries. First, larvae of Oh-yusurika collected from Lake Suwa (Nagano Prefecture, Japan) and from a pond at the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) were described as a new species, C. suwai, on the basis of the banding patterns of polytene chromosomes from their salivary glands, although the larvae were indistinguishable from C. plumosus on the basis of general morphology of the exoskeleton (Golygina et al 2003). Furthermore, another cytological analysis of larvae from the NIES pond and Lake Kasumigaura (Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan) described another species of the C. plumosus group, Chironomus sp.…”

“…Furthermore, for some groups of chironomids, karyological analysis of the banding patterns of polytene chromosomes has been traditionally used for species identification, and some new species have been described only on the basis of karyotype analysis, without other morphological data (Golygina et al . ; Golygina & Ueno ). Karyological identification, however, requires professional skills and is restricted to certain taxa.…”

Karyotype characteristics and gene COI sequences of Chironomus bonus Shilova et Dzhvarsheishvili, 1974 (Diptera, Chironomidae) from the South Caucasus (Republic of Georgia, Paravani river)

“…prope agilis replace Ch. plumosus in Eastern Siberia and the Far East (Kiknadze et al 1996;Golygina et al 2003). As indicated before, the karyotype study is the only reliable method for recognizing species in this group.…”