Abstract
A new black fly species of the subgenus Asiosimulium Takaoka & Choochote of the genus Simulium was recognized from northeastern Thailand based on morphology, mitochondrial DNA and ecology. This black fly species has similar morphological characteristics to Simulium oblongum Takaoka and Choochote that was also described from the same geographic region in all life stages. However, this new species could be distinguished at the adult stage by coloration of the maxillary palp and in the larval stage by the presence of a pigmented subesophageal ganglion that is lacking in S. oblongum. Genetic distance and phylogenetic analyses based on mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I sequences clearly differentiated the two species with minimum genetic distance of 3.51%. These species are also ecologically isolated as S. oblongum is found only at low elevation (<650 m above sea level) but the new species occurs only at high elevation (>1,100 m above sea level).
References
Adler, P.H., Currie, D.C. & Wood, D.M. (2004) The Black Flies (Simuliidae) of North America. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 941 pp.
Adler, P.H., Cheke, R.A. & Post, R.J. (2010) Evolution, epidemiology, and population genetics of black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae). Infection, Genetics and Evolution, 10, 846–865.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meegid.2010.07.003Adler, P.H. & Crosskey, R.W. (2017) World Blackflies (Diptera: Simuliidae): A Comprehensive Revision of the Taxonomic and Geographical Inventory [2017]. 131 pp. Availablefrom: http://www.clemson.edu/cafls/biomia/pdfs/blackflyinventory.pdf (accessed24 January 2018)
Anisimova, M. & Gascuel, O. (2006) Approximate likelihood-ratio test for branches: a fast, accurate, and powerful alternative. Systematic Biology, 55, 539–552.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10635150600755453Crosskey, R.W. (1990) The Natural History of Blackflies. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, 711 pp.
Folmer, O., Black, M., Hoeh, W., Lutz, R. & Vrijenhoek, R. (1994) DNA primers for amplification of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I from diverse metazoan invertebrates. Molecular Marine Biology and Biotechnology, 3, 294–299.
Guindon, S., Dufayard, J.F., Lefort, V., Anisimova, M., Hordijk, W. & Gascuel, O. (2010) New algorithms and methods to estimate maximum-likelihood phylogenies: assessing the performance of PhyML 3.0. Systematic Biology, 59, 307–321.
https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syq010Huelsenbeck, J.P. & Ronquist, F.R. (2001) MrBayes: Bayesian inference of phylogeny. Bioinformatics, 17, 754–755.
https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/17.8.754Nylander, J.A.A. (2004) MrModeltest 2.2. Program Distributed by the Author. Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala. [software]
Pangjanda, S. & Pramual, P. (2016) Trait-based and phylogenetic community ecology of black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae) in tropical streams of Thailand. Hydrobiologia, 763 (1), 345–356.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-015-2389-8Pangjanda, S. & Pramual, P. (2017) Tests of conspecificity for closely related black fly (Diptera: Simuliidae) species of the Simulium striatum group in Thailand. Zootaxa, 4231 (3), 421–430.
https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4231.3.8Pramual, P. & Adler, P.H. (2014) DNA barcoding of tropical black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae) of Thailand. Molecular Ecology Resouces, 14, 262–271.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.12174Srisuka, W., Takaoka, H. & Saeung, A. (2015) Description of the male, pupa and larva ofSimulium (Asiosimulium) wanchaii (Diptera: Simuliidae) from Thailand, with keys to identify four species of the subgenus Asiosimulium. Tropical Biomedicine, 32 (3), 504–510.
Takaoka, H. & Choochote, W. (2005) A new subgenus and a new species of Simulium s.l. (Diptera: Simuliidae) from Thailand. Medical Entomology and Zoology, 56 (1), 33–41.
https://doi.org/10.7601/mez.56.33_1Takaoka, H. & Choochote, W. (2006) A new species of the subgenus Simulium (Asiosimulium) (Diptera: Simuliidae) from Thailand. Medical Entomology and Zoology, 57 (1), 45–48.
https://doi.org/10.7601/mez.57.45_1Takaoka, H. & Shrestha, S. (2010) New species of black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae) from Nepal. Zootaxa, 2731, 1–62.
Takaoka, H., Sofian-Azirun, M., Ya’Cob, Z., Chen, C.D., Lau, K.W., Low, V.L., Pham, X.D. & Adler, P.H. (2017) The black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae) of Vietnam. Zootaxa, 4261 (1), 1–165.
https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4261.1.1Takaoka, H. & Suzuki, H. (1984) The black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae) from Thailand. Japanese Journal of Sanitary Zoology, 35, 7–45.
https://doi.org/10.7601/mez.35.7Takaoka, H., Srisuka, W., Saeung, A. & Choochote, W. (2013) Simulium (Asiosimulium) furvum, a new species of black fly (Diptera: Simuliidae) from Thailand. Journal of Medical Entomology, 50 (3), 493–500.
https://doi.org/10.1603/ME13004Tamura, K., Stecher, G., Peterson, D., Filipski, A. & Kumar, S. (2013) MEGA6: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis version 6.0. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 30 (12), 2725–2729.
Ya’cob, Z., Takaoka, H., Low, V.L. & Sofian-Azirun, M. (2017) Uncovering the mask of the Simulium feuerborni complex (Diptera: Simuliidae): Description of a new pseudocryptic species Simulium pairoti from Malaysia. Acta Tropica, 169, 133–141.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actatropica.2017.02.005