Morphological and genetic evidence supports the separation of two Tapinoma ants (Formicidae, Dolichoderinae) from the Atlantic Forest biome

By

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

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2021

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

1033

Pages

35--62

Subjects

Cryptic Diversity , haplotype network , intraspecific variation , mitochondrial DNA , neglected taxon , phylogenetic reconstruction

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1033.59880

 

Abstract

The taxonomic boundaries of many Neotropical ant species of the genus Tapinoma are still unclear. Tapinoma 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 breviscapumstatus novo, and this decision is supported by the DNA results, where Tapinoma atriceps was recovered as a lineage independent of T. breviscapum.