Two new species of groundwater amphipods of the genus Niphargus Schiödte, 1849 from northwestern Iran

Abstract

This study was conducted to describe and illustrate two new species of groundwater amphipods from the northern parts of the Zagros Mountains in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. Mitochondrial (COI) and nuclear (28S rDNA) fragments as well as several morphological traits were used to characterize Niphargus urmiensis sp. nov. and Niphargus fiseri sp. nov. The phylogenetic analyses showed that the nucleotide differences between the recently described species and their close allies are attributed to their distinctiveness. The molecular analysis also introduced that the new species are placed within the clade comprising Iranian species as a sister taxon. The genetic distances between N. urmiensis sp. nov. and N. fiseri sp. nov. are 7.6% and 1.6%, respectively based on the COI and 28S rDNA gene fragments.

Groundwater amphipods of the genus Niphargus Schiødte, 1834 in Boyer-Ahmad region (Iran) with description of two new species

“…Iran represents the eastern boundary of Niphargus range. Several studies during the past five years unveiled many new species (Esmaeili-Rineh et al 2015a, b, 2017a, b, 2018Mamaghani-Shishvan et al 2017;Mamaghani-Shishvan & Esmaeili-Rineh 2019). In this paper, we report on further explorations of the niphargid fauna, specifically from Boyer-Ahmad region (Fig.…”

“…The chromatograms were edited in Bioedit, version 7.0.5.3. The acquired sequences (with GenBank accession numbers MT636103 to MT636107 for COI and MT652091 to MT652097 for 28S) were analysed within the data set of Esmaeili-Rineh et al (2015b) and Mamaghani-Shishvan & Esmaeili-Rineh (2019), in order to identify the phylogenetic position of the newly collected specimens. The outgroup was selected on a basis of previous phylogenetic analyses.…”

Insights on the Existence of Ancient Glacial Refugee in the Northern Black/Azov Sea Lowland, with the Description of the First Stygobiotic Microcrustacean Species of the Genus Niphargus Schiödte, 1849 from the Mouth of the Don River

“…The diversity and endemism of the stygobiotic fauna of the mountainous regions of the Caucasus and the Crimean Peninsula in the south, especially their southern slopes, as well as the Carpathian Mountains in the west of the studied region, are very well known, and many endemic species have been described from there (see above; Table 2) [82][83][84][85][86]. In the past, the abovementioned mountainous regions were interconnected with the Middle East, representing a West Asian transition region for subterranean/stygobiotic animals [86][87][88][89] within the boundaries of Paratethys [57,58]. The diversity of these regions largely exists due to maintaining of a stable warm climate during periods of cooling and glaciation, determined by the presence of glacial refugees during the Pliocene/Pleistocene time, such as well-known Colchis and Hyrcania [90,91].…”

Global overview on groundwater fauna

“…Research on groundwater fauna, focused on the amphipod genus Niphargus , has been conducted in Iran (Esmaeili‐Rineh et al, 2015). Morphological characters and phylogenetic analyses resulted in the identification of 17 new stygofauna species in 2018, along with studies comparing Iranian amphipods with European nipargids (Bargrizaneh et al, 2021; Esmaeili‐Rineh et al, 2015, 2016, 2018; Esmaeili‐Rineh, Mirghaffari, & Sharifi, 2017; Esmaeili‐Rineh, Sari, et al, 2017; Hekmatara et al, 2013; Mamaghani‐Shishvan & Esmaeili‐Rineh, 2019). Other studies in Iran used molecular techniques to investigate the distributional ranges of amphipods, revealing that ‘there is no evidence to consider that groundwater species are geographically more restricted than surface species’ (Esmaeili‐Rineh et al, 2020), thus adding to the global understanding stygofauna distribution.…”