Espinasa, Christoforides & Morfessis Sequence analyses of the 16S rRNA of epigean and hypogean diplurans in the Jumandi Cave area, Ecuador Luis Espinasa1,2, Sara Christoforides1 & Stella E. Morfessis1 1 School of Science, Marist College, 3399 North Rd, Poughkeepsie, New York 12601, USA 2
[email protected] (corresponding author) Key Words: Diplura, Jumandi Cave, Ecuador, troglophile, troglobite, Arthropoda, Insecta, surface, cave, depigmentation, eyeless, Nicoletiidae. One of the most visited caves in Ecuador is Jumandi Cave (0o 52.5028’ S, 77o 47.5587’ W). Jumandi Cave is 660 meters above sea level, 4 kilometers north of the village of Archidona, and 14 km north of the town of Tena in the Napo Province (Peck 1985). The cave is a single stream passage with side corridors. For a full description of the cave and a map see Peck (1985). Temperature inside the cave is 22 °C (Peck 1985). Bats and bat guano is scarce throughout the cave. A stream takes up most of the cave floor and brings in considerable plant debris that may be the food source for the aquatic invertebrate and vertebrate community. The most distinguished inhabitant of this cave is the endemic cave-adapted catfish, Astroblepus pholeter (Collette, 1962) (Collette 1962; Haspel et al. 2012). Stewart Peck, professor and entomologist at the University of Carleton, visited Jumandi Cave in 1984 and conducted a bioinventory. He reported the presence of 22 species of invertebrates as well as the Astroblepus catfish (Peck 1985). According to Peck, 19 species of the invertebrates were troglophiles and three were trogloxenes. The only reported troglobiont was Astroblepus pholeter (Peck 1985).