Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 5590 No. 2: 21 Feb. 2025
Type: Article
Published: 2025-02-21
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5590.2.3
Page range: 209-230
Abstract views: 59
PDF downloaded: 4

Investigation on the origin of the “nose” in the genus Megalothorax Willem, 1900 (Neelidae, Collembola) by the means of integrative taxonomy

Moscow State Pedagogical University; Kibalchicha str.; 6; korp. 3; Moscow; 129278; Russia
Moscow State Pedagogical University; Kibalchicha str.; 6; korp. 3; Moscow; 129278; Russia
Moscow State Pedagogical University; Kibalchicha str.; 6; korp. 3; Moscow; 129278; Russia; Lomonosov Moscow State University; Leninsky Gory; 1-12; Moscow; 119234; Russia.
Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung; Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz; Soil Zoology Department; Am Museum 1; 02826; Görlitz
Collembola M. bokovae sp. nov. Neelipleona springtails morphology chaetotaxy Scanning Electron Microscopy Oxford Nanopore long DNA amplicon

Abstract

Megalothorax Willem, 1900 is a genus of Collembola that comprises 36 species to date. For a long time, its diversity was overlooked, but recent integrative taxonomic works allowed us to understand better their seemingly cryptic diversity. Among the oddities of the genus are the so-called “nosed” species, i.e. species equipped with a frontal cuticular process, an unusual trait for Collembola.

In this work, we describe a new “nosed” species from the north of European part of Russia and redescribe the first known “nosed” species: Megalothorax sanctistephani Christian, 1998. This species is known only from peculiar places: initially the catacombs of a cathedral in Vienna, and our new findings in underground tunnel in Paris and Botanical Garden of Kaliningrad. We also used long-read sequencing to obtain new DNA data for “nosed” species of Collembola. We investigated the evolution of the “nose” using molecular and morphological phylogeny approaches.

This evolution remained unclear, as molecular and morphological data are conflicting on this specific point. The “nose” may have been acquired a single time, then lost secondarily in some species; or have been acquired independently several times.

 

References

  1. Bankevich, A., Nurk, S., Antipov, D., Gurevich, A.A., Dvorkin, M., Kulikov, A.S., Lesin, V.M., Nikolenko, S.I., Pham, S., Prjibelski, A.D., Pyshkin, A.V., Sirotkin, A. V., Vyahhi, N., Tesler, G., Alekseyev, M.A. & Pevzner, P.A. (2012) SPAdes: A New Genome Assembly Algorithm and Its Applications to Single-Cell Sequencing. Journal of Computational Biology, 19 (5), 455–477. https://doi.org/10.1089/cmb.2012.0021
  2. Börner, C. (1903) Neue altweltliche Collembolen, nebst Bemerkungen zur Systematik der Isotominen und Entomobryien. Sitzungs-Berichte der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin, 1903, 129–182. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.part.29866
  3. Bretfeld, G. & Griegel, A. (2006) Acanthoneelidus nom. n. for the genus Acanthothorax Bretfeld & Griegel, 1999 from northwestern Poland (Insecta, Collembola, Neelidae). Senckenbergiana biologica, 861, 46.
  4. Caroli, E. (1912) Collembola. Su di un nuovo genere di Neelidae. Annuario del Museo Zoologico della Università di Napoli, 4, 1–5.
  5. Christian, E. (1998) Megalothorax sanctistephani sp. n. from the catacombs of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna (Collembola: Neelida). Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien, 100, 15–18.
  6. Collins, G., Schneider, C., Boštjančić, L.L., Burkhardt, U., Christian, A., Decker, P., Ebersberger, I., Hohberg, K., Lecompte, O., Merges, D., Muelbaier, H., Romahn, J., Römbke, J., Rutz, C., Schmelz, R., Schmidt, A., Theissinger, K., Veres, R., Lehmitz, R., Pfenninger, M. & Bálint, M. (2023) The MetaInvert soil invertebrate genome resource provides insights into below-ground biodiversity and evolution. Communications biology, 6 (1), 1241. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-05621-4
  7. Darriba, D., Posada, D., Kozlov, A.M., Stamatakis, A., Morel, B. & Flouri, T. (2020) ModelTest-NG: a new and scalable tool for the selection of DNA and protein evolutionary models. Molecular biology and evolution, 37 (1), 291–294.
  8. Deharveng, L. (1978) Collemboles cavernicoles. 1. Grottes de l’Aguzou (France: Aude). Bulletin de la Société d’Histoire naturelle de Toulouse, 114 (3–4), 393–403.
  9. Deharveng, L. & Beruete, E. (1993) Megalothorax tuberculatus sp. n., nouveau troglobie des Pyrénées-Atlantiques (France) et de Navarre (Espagne) (Collembola, Neelidae). Bulletin de la Société entomologique de France, 98 (1), 15–18. https://doi.org/10.3406/bsef.1993.17853
  10. Edgar, R.C. (2022) Muscle5: High-accuracy alignment ensembles enable unbiased assessments of sequence homology and phylogeny. Nature Communications, 13 (1), 6968. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34630-w
  11. Folsom, J.W. (1896) Neelus murinus, representing a new thysanuran family. Psyche, 7, 391–392. https://doi.org/10.1155/1896/43242
  12. Goloboff, P.A., Farris, J.S. & Nixon, K.C. (2008) TNT, a free program for phylogenetic analysis. Cladistics, 24 (5), 774–786. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-0031.2008.00217.x
  13. Goloboff, P.A. & Morales, M.E. (2023) TNT version 1.6, with a graphical interface for MacOS and Linux, including new routines in parallel. Cladistics, 39 (2), 144–153. https://doi.org/10.1111/cla.12524
  14. Greenslade, P., Stevens, M.I., Torricelli, G. & D’Haese, C.A. (2011) An ancient Antarctic endemic genus restored: morphological and molecular support for Gomphiocephalus hodgsoni (Collembola: Hypogastruridae). Systematic Entomology, 36 (2), 223–240. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-3113.2010.00553.x
  15. Kováč, Ľ. & Papáč, V. (2010) Revision of the genus Neelus Folsom, 1896 (Collembola, Neelida) with the description of two new troglobiotic species from Europe. Zootaxa, 2663 (1), 36–52. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.2663.1.2
  16. Kozlov, A.M., Darriba, D., Flouri, T., Morel, B. & Stamatakis, A. (2019) RAxML-NG: a fast, scalable and user-friendly tool for maximum likelihood phylogenetic inference. Bioinformatics, 3521, 453–4455. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btz305
  17. Krehenwinkel, H., Pomerantz, A., Henderson, J.B., Kennedy, S.R., Lim, J.Y., Swamy, V., Shoobridge, J.D., Graham, N., Patel, N.H., Gillespie, R.G. & Prost, S. (2019) Nanopore sequencing of long ribosomal DNA amplicons enables portable and simple biodiversity assessments with high phylogenetic resolution across broad taxonomic scale. GigaScience, 8 (5), giz006. https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giz006
  18. Li, H. (2018) Minimap2: pairwise alignment for nucleotide sequences. Bioinformatics, 34 (18), 3094–3100. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/bty191
  19. Miranda, M. (2017) Preparation of 1.5 mg/mL Sera-mag carboxylate modified magnetic particles. Available from: https://www.protocols.io/view/preparation-of-1-5-mg-ml-sera-mag-carbolylate-modi-rm7vzko8vx1w/v1 (accessed 4 December 2024) https://doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.g2abyae
  20. Panina, K., Babenko, A. & Potapov, M. (2022) Two new «nosed» species of the genus Megalothorax (Collembola: Neelidae) from Russia. Zootaxa, 5188 (4), 383–395. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5188.4.6
  21. Papáč, V. & Kováč, Ľ. (2013) Four new troglobiotic species of the genus Megalothorax Willem, 1900 (Collembola: Neelipleona) from the Carpathian Mountains (Slovakia, Romania). Zootaxa, 3737 (5), 545–575. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3737.5.3
  22. Papáč, V., Lukić, M. & Kováč, Ľ. (2016) Genus Neelus Folsom, 1896 (Hexapoda, Collembola) reveals its diversity in cave habitats: two new species from Croatia. Zootaxa, 4088 (1), 51–75. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4088.1.2
  23. Papáč, V. & Palacios-Vargas, J.G. (2016) A new genus of Neelidae (Collembola) from Mexican caves. ZooKeys, 569, 37. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.569.5984
  24. Papáč, V., Raschmanová, N. & Kováč, Ľ. (2019) New species of the genus Megalothorax Willem, 1900 (Collembola: Neelipleona) from a superficial subterranean habitat at Dobšinská Ice Cave, Slovakia. Zootaxa, 4648 (1), 165–177. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4648.1.9
  25. Pipan, T. & Culver, C.D. (2019) Chapter 107. Shallow subterranean habitats. In: White, W.C., Culver, D.C. & Pipan, T. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Caves. 3rd Edition. Academic Press, Amsterdam, pp. 896–908. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-814124-3.00107-2
  26. Schneider, C. & D’Haese, C.A. (2013) Morphological and molecular insights on Megalothorax: the largest Neelipleona genus revisited (Collembola). Invertebrate Systematics, 27 (3), 317–364. https://doi.org/10.1071/IS13002
  27. Schneider, C., Porco, D. & Deharveng, L. (2016) Two new Megalothorax species of the minimus group (Collembola, Neelidae). ZooKeys, 554, 37. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.554.6069
  28. Schneider, C., Zon, S.D. & d’Haese, C.A. (2018) Megalothorax laevis (Neelipleona, Neelidae): Account of a neglected springtail widely distributed in the intertropical zone. International Journal of Tropical Insect Science, 38 (3), 168–191. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742758418000024
  29. Schneider, C., Minor, M.A. & d’Haese, C.A. (2023) A new group of species of the genus Megalothorax (Collembola, Neelidae) with Gondwanan distribution, and introducing an open interactive identification key of Megalothorax species. Zootaxa, 5228 (2), 101–121. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5228.2.1
  30. Schneider, C. & Panina, K. (2023) Revision of Megalothorax incertus Börner, 1903 reveals it to be another widespread Palearctic species of the genus (Collembola, Neelidae). Zootaxa, 5318 (4), 474–488. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5318.4.2
  31. Schneider, C. & Panina, K. (2025) Open key of the Megalothorax species of the world (Collembola: Neelidae), v1.0.3. [https://github.com/ClemSc/OpenKeyMegalothorax] https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7341417
  32. Shen, W., Sipos, B. & Zhao, L. (2024) SeqKit2: A Swiss army knife for sequence and alignment processing. iMeta, 3 (3), e191. https://doi.org/10.1002/imt2.191
  33. Vannier, G. & Massoud, Z. (1967) Productions cireuses chez les Collemboles Neelidae. Revue d’Écologie et de Biologie du Sol, 4 (1), 123–130.
  34. Willem, V. (1900) Un type nouveau de Sminthuride: Megalothorax. Annales de la Société Entomologique de Belgique, 44, 7–10.