Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T06:18:09.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Molecular characterization and phylogeny of Kalotermes populations from the Levant, and description of Kalotermes phoeniciae sp. nov.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2015

S. Ghesini  and
M. Marini
S. Ghesini
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche, Geologiche e Ambientali, Università di Bologna, Via Selmi 3 I-40126 Bologna, Italy
M. Marini*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche, Geologiche e Ambientali, Università di Bologna, Via Selmi 3 I-40126 Bologna, Italy
*
*Author for correspondence Phone: +39 051 2094161 Fax: +39 051 2094286 E-mail: mario.marini@unibo.it
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The presence of the yellow-necked drywood termite, Kalotermes flavicollis Fabr., has been reported along most of the Mediterranean coasts of Europe, Africa and Asia. While morphological and genetic data exist on European K. flavicollis populations from western and central Mediterranean regions, data on eastern Mediterranean Kalotermes are scarce, and no genetic data exist to date. In this study, we analyzed 17 Kalotermes sp. colonies from 11 localities in the Levant (Cyprus, Lebanon, and Israel), in order to characterize genetically (mitochondrial DNA: COII, 16S, and control region) these populations. We found that samples from the Levant are genetically different from K. flavicollis, with distance values falling in the range of interspecific distances. In the phylogeny of European Kalotermes populations, samples from the Levant form a clade of their own, sister to a clade including K. flavicollis and Kalotermes italicus. Inside the eastern Mediterranean clade, all the samples from Cyprus are included in a well-supported subclade, suggesting that the colonization of the island might have occurred in a single event. These findings show that the populations we examined do not belong to the species K. flavicollis, but to a new species peculiar to the Levant, that we describe as Kalotermes phoeniciae sp. nov. It is possible that previous reports of K. flavicollis in this region can be attributed to K. phoeniciae.

Keywords

Kalotermes flavicollisCyprusIsraelLebanon
Type
Research Papers
Information
Bulletin of Entomological Research , Volume 105 , Issue 3 , June 2015 , pp. 285 - 293
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bandelt, H.J., Forster, P. & Röhl, A. (1999) Median-joining networks for inferring intraspecific phylogenies. Molecular Biology and Evolution 16, 37–48.Google Scholar
Bodenheimer, F.S. (1930) Die Schädlingsfauna Palästinas. Monographien zur angewandten Entomologie 10, 1–438.Google Scholar
Boykin, L.M., Armstrong, K.F., Kubatko, L. & De Barro, P. (2012) Species delimitation and global biosecurity. Evolutionary Bioinformatics 8, 1–37.Google Scholar
Clément, J.-L. (1978) Nouveaux critères taxinomiques dans le genre Reticulitermes (Holmgren) [Isoptera]. Description de nouveaux taxons français. Annales de la société entomologique de France (N.S.) 14, 131–139.Google Scholar
Clément, J.-L., Bagnères, A.-G., Uva, P., Wilfert, L., Quintana, A., Reinhard, J. & Dronnet, S. (2001) Biosystematics of Reticulitermes termites in Europe: morphological, chemical and molecular data. Insectes Sociaux 48, 202–215.Google Scholar
Clement, M., Posada, D. & Crandall, K.A. (2000) TCS: a computer program to estimate gene genealogies. Molecular Ecology 9, 1657–1659.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corti, C., Masseti, M., Delfino, M. & Pérez-Mellado, V. (1999) Man and herpetofauna of the Mediterranean islands. Revista Española de Herpetologìa 13, 83–100.Google Scholar
Darriba, D., Taboada, G.L., Doallo, R. & Posada, D. (2012) JModelTest 2: more models, new heuristic and parallel computing. Nature Methods 9, 772.Google Scholar
Doyle, J.J. & Doyle, J.L. (1987) A rapid DNA isolation procedure for small amounts of fresh leaf tissue. Phytochemical Bulletin 19, 11–15.Google Scholar
Gathorne-Hardy, F.J., Jones, D.T. & Mawdsley, N.A. (2000) The recolonization of the Krakatau islands by termites (Isoptera) and their biogeographical origins. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 71, 251–267.Google Scholar
Ghesini, S. & Marini, M. (2012) Morphology and phylogeny of Reticulitermes sp. (Isoptera, Rhinotermitidae) from Cyprus. Bulletin of Entomological Research 102, 672–681.Google Scholar
Ghesini, S. & Marini, M. (2013) A dark necked drywood termite (Isoptera, Kalotermitidae) in Italy: description of Kalotermes italicus sp. nov. Florida Entomologist 96, 200–211.Google Scholar
Ghesini, S., Simon, D. & Marini, M. (2014) Kalotermes sinaicus Kemner (Isoptera, Kalotermitidae): new morphological and genetic evidence, and assignment to the new genus Longicaputermes gen. nov. Insectes Sociaux 61, 123–131.Google Scholar
Guindon, S. & Gascuel, O. (2003) A simple fast and accurate algorithm to estimate large phylogenies by maximum likelihood. Systematic Biology 52, 696–704.Google Scholar
Hammer, Ø., Harper, D.A.T. & Ryan, P.D. (2001) PAST: Palaeontological Statistics software package for education and data analysis. Palaeontologia Electronica 4, 9.Google Scholar
Huelsenbeck, J.P., Ronquist, F., Nielsen, R. & Bollback, J.P. (2001) Bayesian inference of phylogeny and its impact on evolutionary biology. Science 294, 2310–2314.Google Scholar
Krishna, K., Grimaldi, D.A., Krishna, V. & Engel, M.S. (2013) Treatise on the Isoptera of the world. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 377, 1–2704.Google Scholar
Kugler, J. (1988) The zoogeography of social insects of Israel and Sinai. pp. 251–276 in Yom-Tov, Y. & Tchernov, B. (Eds) The zoogeography of Israel. Dordrecht, Dr W. Junk Publishers.Google Scholar
Luchetti, A., Bergamaschi, S., Marini, M. & Mantovani, B. (2004) Mitochondrial DNA analysis of native European Isoptera: a comparison between Reticulitermes (Rhinotermitidae) and Kalotermes (Kalotermitidae) colonies from Italy and Balkans. Redia 87, 149–153.Google Scholar
Luchetti, A., Dedeine, F., Velonà, A. & Mantovani, B. (2013) Extreme genetic mixing within colonies of the wood-dwelling termite Kalotermes flavicollis (Isoptera, Kalotermitidae). Molecular Ecology 22, 3391–3402.Google Scholar
Masters, B.C., Fan, V. & Ross, A. (2010) Species delimitation – a Geneious plugin for the exploration of species boundaries. Molecular Ecology Resources 11, 154–157.Google Scholar
Monaghan, M.T., Wild, R., Elliot, M., Fujisawa, T., Balke, M., Inward, D.J.G., Lees, D.C., Ranaivosolo, R., Eggleton, P., Barraclough, T.G. & Vogler, A.P. (2009) Accelerated species inventory on Madagascar using coalescent-based models of species delineation. Systematic Biology 58, 298–311.Google Scholar
Rodrigo, A., Bertels, F., Heled, J., Noder, R., Shearman, H. & Tsai, P. (2008) The perils of plenty: what are we going to do with all these genes? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363, 3893–3902.Google Scholar
Ronquist, F. & Huelsenbeck, J.P. (2003) MrBayes 3: Bayesian phylogenetic inference under mixed models. Bioinformatics 19, 1572–1574.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosenberg, N.A. (2007) Statistical tests for taxonomic distinctiveness from observations of monophyly. Evolution 61, 317–323.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Simmons, A.H. (1999) Faunal Extinction in an Island Society: Pigmy Hippopotamus Hunters of Cyprus. London, Kluwer.Google Scholar
Sjöstedt, Y. (1925) Neue Termiten aus Afrika und Madagaskar. Konowia 4, 53–55.Google Scholar
Springhetti, A. (1959) Mortalità in colonie di termiti (C. flavicollis e R. lucifugus) trattate con acqua salmastra. Bollettino dell'Istituto di Patologia del Libro “A. Gallo” 18, 81–84.Google Scholar
Swofford, D.L. (2003) PAUP*. Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsimony (*and other methods). Version 4. Sunderland, USA, Sinauer Associates.Google Scholar
Tamura, K., Peterson, D., Peterson, N., Stecher, G., Nei, M. & Kumar, S. (2011) MEGA5: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis using maximum likelihood, evolutionary distance and maximum parsimony methods. Molecular Biology and Evolution 28, 2731–2739.Google Scholar
Thompson, G.J., Miller, L.R., Lenz, M. & Crozier, R.H. (2000) Phylogenetic analysis and trait evolution in Australian lineages of drywood termites (Isoptera, Kalotermitidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 17, 419–429.Google Scholar
Velonà, A., Ghesini, S., Luchetti, A., Marini, M. & Mantovani, B. (2010) Starting from Crete, a phylogenetic re-analysis of the genus Reticulitermes in the Mediterranean area. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 56, 1051–1058.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velonà, A., Luchetti, A., Ghesini, S., Marini, M. & Mantovani, B. (2011) Mitochondrial and nuclear markers highlight the biodiversity of Kalotermes flavicollis (Fabricius, 1793) (Insecta, Isoptera, Kalotermitidae) in the Mediterranean area. Bulletin of Entomological Research 101, 353–64.Google Scholar