Redescription of Milnesium alpigenum Ehrenberg, 1853 (Tardigrada: Apochela) and a description of Milnesium inceptum sp. nov., a tardigrade laboratory model
Author
Morek, Witold
Author
Suzuki, Atsushi C.
Author
Schill, Ralph O.
Author
Georgiev, Dilian
Author
Yankova, Maria
Author
Marley, Nigel J.
Author
Michalczyk, Łukasz
text
Zootaxa
2019
2019-04-16
4586
1
35
64
journal article
27131
10.11646/zootaxa.4586.1.2
6c27fa6f-8be8-4b9a-8f3f-f6581007b008
1175-5326
2642667
2D01FAB0-53DF-4B89-A891-A51C548D4B72
Delineation of
M. alpigenum
and
M. inceptum
sp. nov.
The two species are genetically distinct but morphologically very similar, although not identical. Therefore, they could be classified as pseudocryptic species,
i.e.
species that can be differentiated morphologically but only with a detailed analysis; in this case—with the use of statistical testing of morphometric traits measured in a number of specimens, since the classical identification based on qualitative traits and non-overlapping morphometric ranges is not sufficient to tell the species apart.
The PCA analysis indicated three components comprising 59.3% of the total variance in the
pt
ratios. The three factors were as follows: PC1: the
pt
of the primary and secondary branches of all claws (38.2%), PC2: the
pt
of external and posterior spurs (11.3%), and PC3: the
pt
of buccal tube widths and stylet support insertion point (9.8%). The relationships between the principal components are shown in
Fig. 3
. The two species did not differ in PC1 and PC3 but in contrast, they differed in PC2, thus comparisons of the first three principal components did not result in congruent conclusions. Specifically, when PC1 and PC3 were compared (
Fig. 3B
), ranges for the two species largely overlapped. In the PC1
vs
PC2 comparison (
Fig. 3A
), the overlap between species was smaller. Finally, when PC2 and PC3 were compared, the ranges barely overlapped (
Fig. 3C
). Thus, we compared only the traits constituting PC2 (
i.e.
the
pt
values of claw spurs) with a series of
t
-tests and adjusted α-levels. Student’s
t
- tests revealed significant differences in three of the eight compared traits (mean values, ±
SD
, and [ranges] for
M. alpigenum
vs
M. inceptum
sp. nov.
):
• spur on external claw I:
13.3
±
1.5
[
11.3–17.8
]
vs 11.3 ±1.3
[
7.6–14.8
],
t
46
=4.002,
p
<0.001;
• spur on external claw II:
15.3 ±1.4
[
12.7–17.5
]
vs 12.9 ±2.0
[
9.2–16.6
],
t
54
=4.630,
p
<0.001;
• spur on external claw III:
15.2 ±1.4
[
12.4–17.8
]
vs 12.4 ±1.8
[
8.9–16.8
],
t
48
=5.758,
p
<0.001.
In other words, the analysis showed that
M. alpigenum
has statistically longer (relatively to the buccal tube length) external spurs than
M. inceptum
sp. nov.
(compare also
Fig. 1
G–H and 2H–I).
In contrast to subtle morphometric differences, the two species exhibit considerable genetic distances in all four analysed markers. Specifically, they differ by 1.0% in 18S rRNA, 5.2% in 28S rRNA, 21.6% in ITS-2, and by 18.1% in COI. Most importantly, however, the two species are not immediately related to each other (see
Fig. 4
for the positions of both species on the
Milnesium
phylogenetic tree), which is the strongest evidence that the two species represent separate phylogenetic lineages.
To conclude, differences both in phenotypic and genetic traits unequivocally show that
M. inceptum
sp. nov.
is a
bona species
. Nevertheless, an extreme care must be taken when identifying these species using solely phenotypic data.
A B C
0.2 0.2
0.2
0.1 0.1 0.1
))) % % % 9 0 0... 2 0 0 1 0.0 1 0.0 1 0.0 (((2 3 3 PC PC PC
-0.1 -0.1 -0.1
-0.2
-0.2 -0.2
-0.2 0.0 0.2 -0.2 0.0 0.2 -0.1 0.0 -0.1 PC1 (3 5.8%) PC1 (3 5.8%) PC2 (1 2.9%)