Vol. 57, 2018 (update: 2018.04.02; 04.17) Validation of Male Pontella spinipes Giesbrecht, 1889 (Copepoda: Calanoida: Pontellidae) Based on Morphological and Mitochondrial COI Gene Sequence AnalysisSanu Vengasseril Francis1,*, Shuhei Nishida2, and Sivasankaran Bijoy Nandan1 doi:10.6620/ZS.2018.57-16
1Dept.
of Marine Biology, Microbiology and Biochemistry, School of Marine
Sciences, Cochin University of Science and technology, Kerala, India.
E-mail: bijoynandan@yahoo.co.in (Nandan) (Received 13 November 2017; Accepted 16 March
2018; Communicated by Ryuji Machida) Sanu
Vengasseril Francis, Shuhei Nishida, and Sivasankaran Bijoy Nandan
(2018) The neustonic copepods of the family Pontellidae - Pontella spinipes Giesbrecht, 1889
and P. diagonalis Wilson,
1950, both first described on the basis of female specimens exhibit
very similar morphology and overlapping geographic ranges in the Indian
Ocean. While several taxonomists have described males of each species,
there has been no definitive evidence for female-male matching (link
female and male of the same species) in the two species. In the present
study, an analysis of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (mtCOI)
sequences in the specimens collected from the Arabian Sea revealed that
female P. spinipes
Giesbrecht, 1889, and male P.
diagonalis sensu Silas and Pillai (1973) are genetically
identical, providing evidence that the latter is actually P. spinipes. These findings
emphasize that it is necessary to re-examine the female-male
correspondence of other related species, formerly based on morphology
alone, using molecular-genetic analysis as applied in the present study. Key words: Pontella spinipes, Pontella diagonalis, Mitochondrial
cytochrome c oxidase subunit
I, Female-male correspondence, Indian Ocean. *Correspondence: E-mail: sanuvf@gmail.com |