Three new species in the harvestmen genus Acuclavella (Opiliones, Dyspnoi, Ischyropsalidoidea), including description of male Acuclavella quattuor Shear, 1986

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In Shear’s (1986) cladistic analysis of the Ischyropsalidoidea, he described the new genus Acuclavella, including four new species from the Pacific Northwest states of Washington and Idaho. Several of these species descriptions were based on very limited sample sizes. Recent field work has increased by more than an order of magnitude both the number of specimens and known localities for Acuclavella. This new material is used to interpret species limits in Acuclavella using morphometric analyses and DNA sequence data from four gene regions. Sequenced for the first time is the protein-coding homolog of the Wnt2 gene for phylogenetic reconstruction in Opiliones. The multi-locus phylogeny corroborates a sister relationship between Acuclavella and Ceratolasma, as hypothesized using morphology by Shear (1986). Within Acuclavella, morphometric clusters and reciprocal allelic monophyly allow recognition of three additional species: Acuclavella leonardi sp. n., A. sheari sp. n., and A. makah sp. n. This work also describes the previously unknown male of Acuclavella quattuor, from specimens collected at the type locality. This research identifies a number of novel morphologies for Acuclavella, including females with four pairs of spines, individuals with three pairs of spines on scute areas I-III, and a population with two pairs of spines disjunct from A. quattuor, which was diagnosed with this spination character. The authors here were unable to assign these populations to existing species, and conservatively do not yet recognize them as new. Intrageneric morphometrics and phylogenetic inference in Acuclavella were often concordant. However, the authors demonstrate that species delimitation signal would not be detected if only a single line of evidence were utilized.

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ELECTRONIC FILE - Zoology: Invertebrates; NOTE that location data files resulting from the research are also saved in this folder.

SWAP (2/19/2016) citation:
Richart CH, Hedin M. 2013. Three new species in the harvestmen genus Acuclavella (Opiliones, Dyspnoi, Ischyropsalidoidea), including description of male Acuclavella quattuor Shear, 1986. [accessed 2015 Jun 1]; ZooKeys. 311:19–68. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3698555/.

NOTE that 9 appendices are available for this report. The first (A.1) (collection locations), second (II) (PCR primers and conditions), IV (PCA methods and results), and VI (Acuclavella distribution) are in our A13RIC01IDUS folder. The rest are open access at ZooKeys via doi:10.3897/zookeys.311.2920.