Vol. 61, 2022

(update: 2022.7.15)

A New Species of Elpidium (Crustacea: Ostracoda: Limnocytheridae) from Brazil and a Morphological Phylogenetic Proposal for the Genus

Julia S. Pereira^1,*, Carlos E. F. Rocha², Ricardo L. Pinto³, and Marcio B. DaSilva¹

¹Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB), Centro de Ciências Exatas e da Natureza, Departamento de Zoologia, Campus I, Castelo Branco, CEP 58051-900, João Pessoa/PB, Brasil. *Correspondence: E-mail: juliaunbio@gmail.com (Pereira).
E-mail: 1940@uol.com.br (DaSilva)
²Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Biociências, Departamento de Zoologia, Rua do Matão, trav. 14, n°. 101, CEP 05508-090, São Paulo/SP, Brasil. E-mail: cefrocha@usp.br (Rocha)
³Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Geociências, Laboratório de Micropaleontologia, ICC-Ala Central, Subsolo ASS339/10, Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro, Asa Norte, CEP 70910-900, Brasília/DF, Brasil. E-mail: rlpinto@gmail.com (Pinto)

Received 23 October 2021 / Accepted 13 April 2022
Communicated by Ryuji Machida

Elpidium species exclusively inhabiting confined and temporary environments, such as those of tankbromeliads, are a source of interesting and diverse studies on taxonomy, evolution and ecology, to name a few. However, despite its great diversity of species or potential for study, this genus (and other phytotelm members) has been poorly studied. In the last years, however, description of Elpidium species increased from six before 2013 to 11 today. This study is an effort to keep uncovering its great diversity and to go further in order to deeply understand the genus Elpidium. To this end, this study describes another species in the genus, Elpidium litoreum sp. nov., and proposes a phylogenetic reconstruction of it based on morphological characters. Our results point to the monophyly of Elpidium and puts Intrepidocythere ibipora as its sister-group. Although the phylogeny revealed some interesting relations, it also exposed some incongruities that ultimately demonstrate how superficial the current knowledge about the genus is. All these questions are discussed in detail. We see this work as at the same time an effort to better understand Elpidium and a stimulus to other researches to turn their attention to the historically neglected phytotelmata community.

Key words: Limnocytheridae, Taxonomy, Evolution, Bromeliad fauna, Microcrustaceans.

Citation: Pereira JS, Rocha CEF, Pinto RL, DaSilva MB. 2022. A new species of Elpidium (Crustacea: Ostracoda: Limnocytheridae) from Brazil and a morphological phylogenetic proposal for the genus. Zool Stud 61:27. doi:10.6620/ZS.2022.61-27.

Supplementary materials: Table S1 | Table S2 | Table S3