Phylogeography of Daphnia magna Straus (Crustacea: Cladocera) in Northern Eurasia: Evidence for a deep longitudinal split between mitochondrial lineages

Abstract

Species with a large geographic distributions present a challenge for phylogeographic studies due to logistic difficulties of obtaining adequate sampling. For instance, in most species with a Holarctic distribution, the majority of studies has concentrated on the European or North American part of the distribution, with the Eastern Palearctic region being notably understudied. Here, we study the phylogeography of the freshwater cladoceran Daphnia magna Straus, 1820 (Crustacea: Cladocera), based on partial mitochondrial COI sequences and using specimens from populations spread longitudinally from westernmost Europe to easternmost Asia, with many samples from previously strongly understudied regions in Siberia and Eastern Asia. The results confirm the previously suspected deep split between Eastern and Western mitochondrial haplotype super-clades. We find a narrow contact zone between these two super-clades in the eastern part of Western Siberia, with proven co-occurrence in a single lake in the Novosibirsk region. However, at present there is no evidence suggesting that the two mitochondrial super-clades represent cryptic species. Rather, they may be explained by secondary contact after expansion from different refugia. Interestingly, Central Siberia has previously been found to be an important contact zone also in other cladoceran species, and may thus be a crucial area for understanding the Eurasian phylogeography of freshwater invertebrates. Together, our study provides an unprecedented complete, while still not global, picture of the phylogeography of this important model species.

Crustacean remains from the Yuka mammoth raise questions about non-analogue freshwater communities in the Beringian region during the Pleistocene

“…Evidence of their existence in the Beringian region in the Pleistocene could be also obtained from their phylogeography: for instance, Daphnia (C.) magna now has a disrupted distribution area, being recorded from Eurasia and North America, but not in NE to Central Yakutia and NW Canada. It is likely that this recent biogeographic pattern has appeared as a result of the disjunction of a single pan-Beringian distribution area 62 .…”

Cladocera and Copepoda (Crustacea: Branchiopoda) of the Lake Bolon and its basin (Far East of Russia)

“…Microcyclops varians (Sars, 1863) 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 Paracyclops fimbriatus orientalis (Alekseev, 1995) 1 Based on genetic data, it was concluded that there is a main longitudinal biogeographic transitory zone between two faunistic super-complexes in the Yenisey River basin (sometimes in the Ob River basin) [Bekker et al, 2016[Bekker et al, , 2018Kotov et al, 2016], as it was predicted earlier [Korovhinsky, 2004]. Only three cladocerans (Sida ortiva, Diaphanosoma amurensis, Camptocercus uncinatus) from Lake Bolon basin belong to the Eastern Asian complex to date, but after revisions of particular taxa such number should be strongly increased.…”

Alien Species of Fish in the Littoral of Volga and Kama Reservoirs (Results of Complex Expeditions of IBIW RAS in 2005-2017)

“…The use of the methods of genosystematics in some cases makes it possible to identify a significant number of cryptic species, for example, both from poorly studied and extremely diverse coral fish [Hubert et al, 2012], and among seemingly well-morphologically studied aquatic invertebrates . On the other hand, there are hydrobionts, for example, the sea bass Sebastes from the North Atlantic well-differing both in terms of morphology and ecology but demonstrating extremely low genetic differentiation [Artamonova et al, 2013], whereas Daphnia magna crustacean, possesses extremely high intraspecific genetic diversity [Bekker et al, 2018], often exceeding even the intergeneric limits in other animals. A study of the genetic diversity of fish in North America also revealed the limitations of successful species identification using DNA analysis [April et al, 2011].…”