Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.20302/NC.2024.33.3
Phylogeographic structuring within recently diverged scorpion species, Euscorpius borovaglavaensis Tropea, 2015 (Scorpiones: Euscorpiidae) in Croatia, with the description of a new subspecies
Martina Podnar
orcid.org/0000-0002-5782-3222
; Croatian Natural History Museum, Demetrova 1, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Valerio Vignoli
; Siena, Italy
Nikola Tvrtković
; Croatian Biospeleological Society, Rooseveltov trg 6, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The European scorpion Euscorpius borovaglavaensis Tropea, 2015 is a morphologically cryptic species that is distinguishable only with difficulty from E. tergestinus (C. L. Koch, 1837). It is distributed in the middle part of the Dinaric Alps chain and along part of the Eastern Adriatic coast, specifically, in Croatia (Middle Dalmatia, Lika karst upland), as well as in the southern part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The new findings reported here have enhanced our knowledge of its geographic distribution in Croatia. Detailed morphological analyses highlighted the importance of carination in the ventral metasomal segments as morphological traits. Phylogenetic analyses, based on the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene, have revealed the existence of two distinct lineages. One of them, distributed in the northwestern part of the range, is described here as E. b. flavus n. ssp., while the nominal subspecies occurs in the southeastern part. A time-calibrated phylogenetic analysis has established their divergence around 0.9 million years ago, coinciding with the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT) period. In contrast to the nominal subspecies, E. b. flavus n. ssp. exhibits significant phylogeographic structuring, indicating recent isolation events in multiple glacial microrefugia after the initial divergence, followed by a final Holocene dispersal in the northwestern direction deep between the mountain chains.
Keywords
Scorpiones; Euscorpiidae; phylogeny; mtCOI gene; taxonomy; Croatia; Bosnia and Herzegovina
Hrčak ID:
319768
URI
Publication date:
31.7.2024.
Visits: 371 *