A taxonomic revision of the Eurasian Myrmica salina species complex (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)
Keywords:
ant taxonomy, Palaearctic region, cluster analysis, sibling speciesAbstract
The Myrmica salina species complex (MSS complex) is distributed in steppes and other xerothermous open habitats of the Mediterranean and south Temperate zone from Iberia to E Kazakhstan, in latitudes between 37° in Central Asia and 56°N in S Sweden. The taxonomic status of twelve taxa belonging to the MSS complex s. str. was assessed. 16 numerically described phenotypic characters of workers and one distributional character were evaluated in explorative (principal component analysis, PCA) and hypothesis-driven (discriminant analysis, DA) approaches on the basis of 157 nest samples with 435 worker specimens from the whole geographic range. The PCA indicated two main clusters which were confirmed by a cross-validated DA in 98.1% of the samples. The two clusters are recognised as the species M. salina Ruzsky, 1905 and M. specioides Bondroit, 1918 which are sympatric over 4000 km of east-west extension of their range. It was not possible to credibly demonstrate a third or fourth entity by PCA, k-means clustering or running different type-series-centered hypotheses in a DA. The taxa scabrinodis var. ahngeri Karavajev, 1926 (p = 0.999), M. georgica Seifert, 1987 (p = 0.998) and tobiasi Radchenko & Elmes, 2004 (p = 1.000) are synonymised with M. salina (p = 1.000) and scabrinodis var. sancta Karavajev, 1926 (p = 0.997), M. scabrinodis var. turcica Santschi, 1931 (p = 0.983) and M. kozakorum Radchenko & Elmes, 2010 (p = 0.972) with M. specioides (p = 1.000) [in brackets: posterior probability of cluster allocation of the type series in a DA]. M. puerilis Stärcke, 1942, puerilis ab. dolens Stärcke, 1942, M. balcanica Sadil, 1952 and M. balcanica var. scrabrinodoides Sadil, 1952, of which type series were not available, are synonymised with M. specioides based upon original description and terrae typicae. High-resolution z-stack photographs of the lectotypes of M. salina and M. specioides are provided. The species identity of a suggested cluster found in Great Caucasus, Armenia and E Turkey cannot be credibly shown by phenotypic and geographic information and should be checked by means of integrative taxonomy.
References
Bernasconi, C., D. Cherix, B. Seifert and P. Pamilo (2011): Molecular taxonomy of the Formica rufa group (red wood ants) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): a new cryptic species in the Swiss Alps? – Myrmecological News 14: 37–47.
Bondroit, J. (1918): Les fourmis de France et de Belgique. – Annales de la Societé Entomologique de France 87: 1–174.
Finzi, B. (1926): Le forme europee del genere Myrmica Latr. Primo contributo. – Bolletino della Societa Adriatica di Scienze Naturali 29: 71–119.
Jansen, G. & A. Radchenko (2009): Myrmica specioides Bondroit: a new invasive ant species in the USA? – Biological Invasions 11: 253–256.
Karavajev, V. (1926): Myrmekologische Fragmente. – Trudy Ukrains’ka Akademiya Nauk Fizichno- Matematichnoho Viddilu 4: 65–69.
Karavajev, V. (1934): Fauny rodyny Formicidae (murashky) Ukrainy. – Trudy Instytutu Zoolohii ta Biolohii Vseukrains’ka Akademii Nauk, Seriya 1-a. Pratsi z systematyky ta faunistyky: 1–162.
Lachenbruch, P. & M. Mickey (1968): Estimation of error rates in discriminant analysis. – Technometrics 10: 1–11.
Lesaffre, E., J. L. Willems & A. Albert (1989): Estimation of error rate in multiple group logistic discrimination. The approximate leaving-one-out method. – Communication in Statistics: Theory and Methods 18: 2989–3007.
Moreau, C. S. (2009): Inferring ant evolution in the age of molecular data (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). – Myrmecological News 12: 201–210.
Radchenko, A. & G. W. Elmes (2004): Taxonomic notes on the scabrinodis-group of Myrmica species (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) living in eastern Europe and western Asia, with a description of a new species from Tien Shan. – Trudy Russkago Entomologicheskago Obshchestva 75(1): 222–233.
Radchenko, A. & G. W. Elmes (2009): Important alterations in the taxonomy of the ant genus Myrmica (Hymenoptera, Formicidae), based on the investigation of the M. Ruzsky’s type specimens, preserved in the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale ‘Giacomo Doria’ in Genoa. – Annali del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale ‘Giacomo Doria’ 100: 501–525.
Radchenko, A. G & G. W. Elmes (2010): Myrmica ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of the Old World. – Natura optima dux Foundation, Warsaw, Poland: 789 pp.
Ruzsky, M.D. (1905): Muravi Rossii (Formicariae Imperii Rossici). – Trudy Obshchestva Estestvoispytatelei pri Imperatorskom Kazanskom Universitete 38: 1–800.
Sadil, J. V. (1952): A revision of the Czechoslovak forms fo the genus Myrmica Latr. (Hym.). – Sbornik Entomologickeho Oddeleni Narodniho Musea v Praze 27: 233–278.
Santschi, F. (1931): Notes sur le genre Myrmica (Latreille). – Revue Suisse de Zoologie 38: 335–355. Schlick-Steiner, B. C., F. M. Steiner, B. Seifert, C. Stauffer, E. Christian & R. H. Crozier (2010): Integrative Taxonomy: a multi-source approach to exploring biodiversity. – Annual Review of Entomology 55: 421–438.
Seifert, B. (1987): Myrmica georgica n. sp., a new ant from Transcaucasia and north Kazakhstan (USSR) (Hymenoptera, Formicidae, Myrmicinae). – Reichenbachia 24: 183–187.
Seifert, B. (1988): A taxonomic revision of the Myrmica species of Europe, Asia Minor and Caucasia. – Abhandlungen und Berichte des Naturkundemuseums Görlitz 62(3): 1–75.
Seifert, B. (2002): The ‘type’ of Myrmica bessarabica NASSONOV 1889 and the identity of Myrmica salina Ruzsky 1905 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae, Myrmicinae). – Mitteilungen der Münchner Entomologischen Gesellschaft 92: 93–100.
Seifert, B. (2007): Die Ameisen Mittel- und Nordeuropas. – lutra Verlags- und Vertriebsgesellschaft, Tauer, Germany: 368 pp.
Seifert, B. (2008): Removal of allometric variance improves species separation in multi-character discriminant functions when species are strongly allometric and exposes diagnostic characters. – Myrmecological News 11: 91–105.
Seifert, B. (2009): Cryptic species in ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) revisited: we need a change in the alpha-taxonomic approach. – Myrmecological News 12: 149–166.
Seifert, B., B. C. Schlick-Steiner & F. Steiner (2009): Myrmica constricta Karavajev, 1934 – a cryptic sister species of Myrmica hellenica Finzi, 1926 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). – Soil Organisms 81: 53–76.
Seifert, B. & R. Schultz (2009): A taxonomic revision of the Formica subpilosa Ruzsky, 1902 group (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). – Myrmecological News 12: 67–83.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
All articles from Senckenberg’s SOIL ORGANISMS Open Access scientific journal that are made available on the Senckenberg website (www.senckenberg.de) and also www.soil-organisms.org may be read, copied, distributed, and (in limited quantity) printed for non-commercial, private, scientific purposes.
In accordance with the German Science Foundation’s „Rules for the Safeguarding of Good Scientific Practice“, references to cited articles are to be complete and correct and furnished with a link to the website of the Senckenberg journal in question.
The Senckenberg Society for Nature Research (Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, SGN) is a member of the Leibniz Association (Leibniz-Gemeinschaft) and is therefore committed to the idea of Open Access as explained in the Berlin Declaration (Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Scientific Knowledge, Berliner Erklärung über den offenen Zugang zu wissenschaftlichem Wissen).
Open Access is understood to mean the charge-exempt public access to scientific results via the internet. The users should be able to read, copy, print, search within, and reference the full text without limitation and to use it in any conceivable lawful manner without financial, legal or technical hindrance.
This applies also to the SGN, which publishes various scientific series. Some scientific journals are made available to the public via Open Acess in addition to printed copies.
