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Shrouded in a flashing mystery: decoding the gene flow and species boundaries in the firefly Luciola lusitanica (Lampyridae: Coleoptera)
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Resumo(s)
Luciola lusitanica, a prominent species in Europe renowned for its mysterious flashing display,
has been the focus of numerous studies by European coleopterists, primarily exploring its flash
communication and ecological aspects. While past investigations delved into the phenology of this
species, there remains a scarcity of studies addressing its morphological settings. L. lusitanica has often
been deemed morphologically similar to its congeneric, Luciola italica, particularly posing challenges
in differentiation based on unreliable features, such as pronotum spots and body size. The identification
difficulty is exacerbated by significant morphological variability across their European distributions,
casting uncertainty among specialists regarding the true status of L. lusitanica populations. The debate
intensifies as to whether L. lusitanica represents a distinct species or merely constitutes a geographic
morph, characterized by morphological variations within populations, of the genus's type species, L.
italica. Here, 101 individuals of L. lusitanica (96 sequences) and L. italica (5 sequences) were sampled
across Europe and analyzed to (i) assess genetic (COI) variation, and (ii) evaluate if L. lusitanica is a
single species, by combining Bayesian phylogenetic analyses and species delimitation methods - the latter based on discovery approach: Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD) and Multi-rate Poisson
tree processes (mPTP). To map genetic diversity within and between groups, nucleotide and haplotype
diversity were also calculated. Surprisingly, pairwise genetic divergences in COI mtDNA are
remarkably higher among populations (up to 16,6%), supposedly belonging to the same species.
Phylogenetic and species delimitation methods recovered the typical form of L. lusitanica to be
paraphyletic, with three major clades and at least eight putative species discovered by the delimitation
methods. Because morphological traits traditionally used in Lampyridae taxonomy were ineffective in
distinguishing these taxa in the past, L. lusitanica is here considered to be a species complex.
Descrição
Tese de mestrado, Biologia do Organismo e Evolução, 2023, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências
Palavras-chave
Luciolinae da Europa delimitação de espécies filogeografia genómica populacional Teses de mestrado - 2024