bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/056556; this version posted October 13, 2016. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 1 Cryptic diversity and multiple origins of the widespread mayfly species group Baetis rhodani 2 (Ephemeroptera: Baetidae) on northwestern Mediterranean islands 3 4 5 6 Roberta Bisconti a, Daniele Canestrelli a,*, Roberta Tenchini a,b, Carlo Belfiore a, Andrea Buffagni b, 7 Giuseppe Nascetti a. 8 9 a Dipartimento di Scienze Ecologiche e Biologiche, Università della Tuscia. Viale dell’Università s.n.c., I- 10 01100 Viterbo, Italy. 11 b CNR – IRSA, Water Research Institute, Via del Mulino 19, 20861 Brugherio (MB), Italy 12 13 14 15 *Correspondence address: 16 Dipartimento di Scienze Ecologiche e Biologiche, Università della Tuscia. Viale dell’Università s.n.c., I- 17 01100 Viterbo, Italy. 18 e-mail:
[email protected] 19 phone: +39-0761-357414 20 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/056556; this version posted October 13, 2016. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 21 Abstract 22 How the often highly endemic biodiversity of islands originated has been debated for decades and it remains 23 a fervid research ground.