Morphological and genetic evidence supports the separation of two tapinoma ants (Formicidae, dolichoderinae) from the atlantic forest biome

Mayron E. Escárraga, John E. Lattke, Marcio R. Pie, Roberto J. Guerrero*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (journal)peer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)
40 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The taxonomic boundaries of many Neotropical ant species of the genus Tapinoma are still unclear. Tap-inoma atriceps and T. atriceps breviscapum are two morphologically similar taxa which occur sympatrically in the southern Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Some characters such as the scape length and head shape suggest that these taxa may be different species. We used DNA analysis and morphological evidence, including scanning electron microscopy, to evaluate the taxonomic validity of these taxa. We found distinct morphological characteristics that allow separating them as two different species, Tapinoma atriceps and Tapinoma breviscapum status novo, and this decision is supported by the DNA results, where Tapinoma atriceps was recovered as a lineage independent of T. breviscapum.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)35-62
Number of pages28
JournalZooKeys
Volume2021
Issue number1033
Early online date22 Apr 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Keywords

  • Cryptic diversity
  • Haplotype network
  • Intraspecific variation
  • Mitochondrial DNA
  • Neglected taxon
  • Phylogenetic reconstruction

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