Paraphyly of Conodiplostomum Dubois, 1937

Molecular phylogenetic analysis of Neodiplostomum and Fibricola (Digenea, Diplostomidae) does not support host-based systematics

“…The phylogenetic tree resulting from the BI analysis of 18S (Fig. 1) demonstrated a similar topology to that presented by Heneberg et al (2020). Neodiplostomum spp.…”

“…(3) OL799076 ( 4) OL799089 ( 5) MK089351 ( 6) MG770033 ( 7) OL799096 ( 8) OL799079 ( 9) OL799095 ( 10) KY851307 ( 11 et al, 2019c, 2022Queiroz et al, 2020) clearly do not support the system provided by Shoop (1989). Heneberg et al (2020) demonstrated the non-monophyly of Neodiplostomum and proposed Conodiplostomum to be a junior synonym of Neodiplostomum based on molecular phylogenies. Unfortunately, this solution did not remove the problem of the nonmonophyly of Neodiplostomum.…”

“…Sequences were aligned with the assistance of ClustalW as implemented in MEGA7 (Kumar et al, 2016); alignments were trimmed to the length of the shortest respective sequence. Cyathocotyle prussica Mühling, 1896 was used as the outgroup for the analysis of 18S and Strigea strigis (Schrank, 1788) was used as the outgroup for the suprageneric analysis of cox1 to be comparable with the analysis of Heneberg et al (2020). Suchocyathocotyle crocodili (Yamaguti, 1954) was selected as the outgroup for the 28S analysis based on the topology presented by Achatz et al (2019d).…”

“…Currently, DNA sequences are available for six species of Neodiplostomum (Woodyard et al ., 2017; Heneberg et al ., 2020; Lee et al ., unpublished results), but DNA sequence data from morphologically identified adult Fibricola specimens are lacking. Herein, we provide partial sequences of the nuclear small ribosomal subunit (18S), internal transcribed spacer region (ITS1, 5.8S, ITS2) and large ribosomal subunit (28S) rRNA genes as well as a fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 ( cox 1) mtDNA gene for Fibricola cratera (Barker and Noll, 1915) and Fibricola lucidum (La Rue and Bosma, 1927) from mammals as well as five nominal species of Neodiplostomum and an unidentified Neodiplostomum species from a bird.…”

Another plea for ‘best practice’ in molecular approaches to trematode systematics: Diplostomum sp. clade Q identified as Diplostomum baeri Dubois, 1937 in Europe

“…However, this number is most likely to be changed as Achatz et al (2021) questioned the identification of D. ardeae sensu Locke et al (2015). Thanks to recent studies (particularly Achatz et al, 2021) out of these 15 species, specimens of 13 species (D. alarioides, D. alascense, D. ardeae, D. gavium, D. huronense, D. indistinctum, D. lunaschiae, D. marshalli, D. mergi, D. pseudospathaceum, D. rauschi, D. scudderi and D. spathaceum) were obtained from naturally infected bird hosts and connected to the original description (Pérez-del-Olmo et al, 2014;Locke et al, 2015;Heneberg et al, 2020;Achatz et al, 2021) or described as new species (Locke et al, 2020). Still, most of the sequences available in GenBank are based on metacercariae, a stage with least distinguishing characters, and only a small portion of them is linked to voucher material, thus there is no unequivocal identification which would warrant assignment to valid species for many of isolates (Selbach et al, 2015;Hoogendoorn et al, 2020).…”