Enchodelus longispiculus Guerrero, Liébanas & Peña-Santiago, 2008

Ciobanu, Marcel, Popovici, Iuliana, Guerrero, Pablo & Santiago, Reyes Peña-, 2010, Nematodes of the order Dorylaimida from Romania. The genus Enchodelus Thorne, 1939. 2. Species with rounded tail and medium-sized odontostyle, Nematology 12 (3), pp. 381-397 : 381-382

Enchodelus longispiculus Guerrero, Liébanas & Peña-Santiago, 2008

( Fig. 1 )

MATERIAL EXAMINED

Eighteen females and 11 males from five localities: Gilău Mountains (one female); Retezat Mountains (two populations, one consisting of four females and five males and the other including seven females and two males, respectively); Trascău Mountains (two females and three males); and Vrancei Mountains (four females and one male).

MEASUREMENTS

See Table 2.

DISTRIBUTION

Beech forest growing in the Ierii Valley, Gilău Mountains (Western Romanian Carpathians); cliff vegetation on Albele Peak, Retezat Mountains (Southern Romanian Carpathians); cliff vegetation in the Piatra Iorgovanului area, Retezat Mountains; grassland on a mild slope at Tureni Gorges, Trascău Mountains (Western Romanian Carpathians); and cliff vegetation at Cheile Tişiţei, Vrancei Mountains (Eastern Romanian Carpathians); sites 6, 9, 8, 10 and 12 in Table 1 .

* Corresponding author, e-mail: [e-mail]

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010

Also available online - www.brill.nl/nemy

* According to Coldea (1991), Pop et al. (1973) and Coldea (1993).

** According to the Romanian System of Soil Classification ( Conea et al., 1980).

REMARKS

The description of the material herein studied fits that of the Iberian populations well, although the Romanian specimens display a wider variability in several morphological or morphometrical features, such as odontostyle length (24-34 vs 27-31 µm) and vulva position (42.2-51.5 vs 41.0-47.8).

The morphology of the vagina in the Romanian females deserves a special discussion. A few (four out of 18) specimens examined had the pars refringens well developed and nearly identical to that described in the type and other Iberian populations. In the remaining females, however, the pars refringens is poorly developed, even lacking or impossible to distinguish from the pars distalis. Such intraspecific variation was observed among females collected from the same locality, and represents a very unusual feature in dorylaims in which the pars refringens is either present or absent, such a condition being often assumed to represent a good diagnostic character to separate species belonging to the same genus. This is the first record of the species in Romania.

Figures

Fig. 1. Enchodelus longispiculus Guerrero, Liébanas & Peña-Santiago, 2008. A-C: Anterior region in median, lateral view; D, E: Vagina; F, G: Female tail; H: Male, posterior body region; I: Oviduct-uterus junction; J: Male, caudal region. (Scale bars: A-G, I, J = 10 µm; H = 20 µm.)