New Earthworm Records from the Central Zagros Mountain, Iran with Description of a New Species
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NORTH-WESTERN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY 13 (2): 326-336 ©NwjZ, Oradea, Romania, 2017 Article No.: e161805 http://biozoojournals.ro/nwjz/index.html New earthworm records from the Central Zagros Mountain, Iran with description of a new species Robabeh LATIF1, Masoumeh MALEK1* and Csaba CSUZDI2 1. School of Biology and Center of Excellence in Phylogeny of living organisms, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. E-mails: [email protected], [email protected] 2. Department of Zoology, Eszterházy Károly College, Eger, Hungary. E-mail: [email protected] *Corresponding author, M. Malek, E-mail: [email protected] Received: 25. January 2016 / Accepted: 22. June 2016 / Available online: 27. July 2016 / Printed: December 2017 Abstract. The earthworm fauna of Iran is inadequately known. Up till now only 20 species were recorded for the country including 9 autochthonous and 11 peregrine species. The Zagros Mts. of Iran possesses unique geographical and climatic conditions that support a rich biota. Surprisingly enough the earthworm fauna of the region has not been studied earlier. A new survey carried out in the Central Zagros Mountain resulted in recording 24 earthworm species distributed in two families, Lumbricidae (22 species) and Acanthodrilidae (two species) including 6 new country records (Aporrectodea longa, D. pentheri, D. semitica, Microscolex dubius, Microscolex phosphoreus) and furthermore a species new to science; Eisenia omranii sp. nov. According to the zoogeographic composition, out of the 24 species recorded, 14 are widely introduced peregrine ones and 10 are autochtonous of East-Mediterranean origin. In comparison with previously surveyed Elburz region with 14 recorded earthworm species, the Zagrosian earthworm fauna proved to be much richer in term of species number. Key words: Lumbricidae, Acanthodrilidae, Central Zagros, new records, new species. Introduction rani (1973) and following Csuzdi & Zicsi (2003) regarded Aporrectodea trapezoides (Dugès, 1828) as The earthworm fauna of Iran is quite poorly synonym of Ap. caliginosa (Savigny, 1826). known. Until the early 1970s, there were only four Recently a new species Eisenia malekae Szeder- species recorded for the country, three widely dis- jesi, Latif & Csuzdi, 2014 was added to the fauna tributed peregrine worms (Aporrectodea caliginosa raising the number of earthworms of Iran to 22 (Savigny, 1826), Ap. rosea (Savigny, 1826) and Eis- (Szederjesi et al. 2014). eniella tetraedra (Savigny, 1826) and a native spe- Despite the increasing sampling activity in cies Perelia persiana (Michaelsen, 1900) (Michaelsen some parts of Iran, little information is available 1900, Černosvitov 1941). The first broader earth- about the earthworm fauna in the Zagros Moun- worm campaign was launched by Ghassem Ali tain although it represents a special ecoregion in Omrani targeting five larger regions of Iran; the the Palearctic (mountain forest steppe ecoregion Caspian Sea region, environs of Teheran, Isfahan, No. PA0446) and harbors many rare or endan- Shiraz and the region of the Persian Gulf. During gered species (WWF 2016). The present study is this study Omrani collected altogether 233 earth- aimed to obtain a better knowledge on the earth- worm samples and recorded 18 species belonging worm fauna of this remote and still pristine re- to the families Lumbricidae and Megascolecidae gion. (17 and 1 species respectively) (Omrani 1973). During the last decade the earthworm re- search of Iran gained a new momentum and sev- Material and Methods eral papers have been published adding new data to the earthworm fauna of different regions of the Study area The area studied is located in the western and southwest- country such as the Central Elburz Mts. (Latif et al. ern Iran and is a part of the Alpine-Himalayan mountain 2009), Mazandaran Province (Ezzatpanah 2010) chain. This region consists of forested and pastured and Teheran Province (Mirmonsef et al. 2011). mountain ranges. The climate is generally sub-humid These results have been summarized by Farhadi et continental with winter precipitation. The Zagros are lo- al. (2013) listing 19 earthworm species recorded for cated on the boundary between the Arabian and Eurasian Iran, however they forget mentioning Allolobo- tectonic plates (Agard et al. 2005). phoridella parva (Eisen, 1874) listed earlier by Om- Earthworms from the Zagros Mountain, Iran 327 were placed in 4% formalin (Csuzdi & Zicsi 2003). Each bottle was labeled with information of GPS, location, PH, soil moisture and date from which it was collected (Ap- pendix 1). All mature specimens were dissected and ex- amined morphologically. For taxonomic identification the keys in Csuzdi & Zicsi (2003) and Sims & Gerard (1999) and Perel (1979) were used. Results In this study, 24 species belonging to 11 genera Figure 1. Type locality of Eisenia omranii sp. nov (marked and two families of earthworms have been re- with circle). corded. Most of the taxa belong to the genera Den- drobaena Eisen, 1873 and Aporrectodea Örley, 1885 (6 and 5 species, respectively).The definitive list of Method earthworm taxa currently known from the region Investigations were carried out during 3 different peri- ods: in June 2013, July 2014 and Apr. 2015. Samples were is given in Table 1. Of these, five species (Aporrec- obtained from 105 localities at different sites representing todea longa, Dendrobaena pentheri, D. semitica, Micro- various habitats. In some sites, earthworms were sampled scolex dubius, M. phosphoreus) are new records for following two complementary approaches: qualitative the country, and one species Eisenia omranii sp. and quantitative sampling. Adults were collected by dig- nov. proved to be new for science. ging and hand sorting of a 25 cm × 25 cm × 15 cm deep In the frequency of occurrence analysis of the soil monolith. After collection earthworms were trans- identified species in the investigated area, Aporrec- ferred to the laboratory and washed to remove soil. The adult specimens were anaesthetized and killed in 15% todea trapezoides appears to be the most wide- and 75% ethanol, respectively. After one day, samples spread taxon. The next most common species are Table 1. Comparison of the earthworm species found in the Central Zagros and the Elburz regions. Species Central zagros Central elburz Chorotype Aporrectodea caliginosa (Savigny, 1826) + + peregrine Ap. trapezoides (Dugés, 1828) + + peregrine Ap. rosea (Savign, 1826) + + peregrine Ap. jassyensis (Michaelsen, 1891) + + Circum-Mediterranean *Ap. longa (Ude, 1885) + - peregrine Bimastos parvus (Eisen, 1874) + - peregrine Dendrobaena byblica (Rosa, 1893) + + Circum-Mediterranean D. hortensis (Michaelsen, 1890) + + peregrine D. orientalis Černosvitov, 1940 + - East -Mediterranean D. octaedra (Savign, 1826) + + peregrine *D. pentheri (Rosa, 1905) + - East -Mediterranean *D. semitica (Rosa, 1893) + - East -Mediterranean D. veneta (Rosa, 1886) + + peregrine Dendrodrilus rubidus (Savigny, 1826) + + peregrine Eisenia fetida (Savigny, 1826) + + peregrine E. malekae (Szederjesi, Latif & Csuzdi, 2014 + - endemic E. omranii sp. nov. + - endemic Eiseniella tetraedra (Savigny, 1826) + + peregrine Helodrilus patriarchalis (Rosa, 1893) + - East -Mediterranean Healyella syriaca (Rosa, 1893) + - East -Mediterranean Octolasion lacteum (Örley, 1881) + + peregrine Perelia kaznakovi (Michaelsen, 1910) + + East -Mediterranean Dichogaster bolaui (Michaelsen, 1891) - + peregrine *Microscolex dubius Fletcher, 1887 + - peregrine *M. phosphoreus (Dugés, 1837) + - peregrine Amynthas corticis (Kinberg, 1867) - + peregrine *New records for the Iranian earthworm fauna. 328 R. Latif et al. Aporrectodea rosea (Savigny, 1826), Helodrilus patri- Lorestan Province, Bisheh Fall 29.06.2014. ZUTC archalis (Rosa, 1893) and E. fetida ((Savigny, 1826), 5820, 2ex. Kermanshah Province, Ghalegah respectively. 30.04.2014. ZUTC 5822, 3ex. Kermanshah Provine, Karand 02.05.2014. ZUTC 5823, 2ex. Kermanshah List of species Province, Gillane- Gharb 03.05.2014. ZUTC 5824, 2 Family: Lumbricidae (Rafinesque-Schmaltz, ex. Kermanshah Province, Sarabe- Ghanbar 1815) 03.05.2014. ZUTC, 5825 8ex. Kermanshah Prov- Aporrectodea caliginosa (Savigny, 1826) ince, Harsin 04.05.2014. ZUTC 2826, 5ex. Kerman- Aporrectodea caliginosa: Csuzdi and Zicsi 2003: 75 shah Province, Ghaledez 29.05.2014ZUTC 5827, (for complete synonymy) 3ex. Lorestan Provine, Pole-Dokhtar 18.06.2014. Material examined: ZUTC 5801, 3 ex. Lorestan ZUTC 5828, 2ex. Hamedan Province, Famenin Province, Robate-Namaki 28.06.2013. ZUTC 5802, 20.06.2014. ZUTC 5829, 4 ex. Hamedan Province, 5ex. Lorestan Province, Sarabe-Honam 28.6.2013. Shahrak- Village 20.06.2014. ZUTC 5830, 2ex. ZUTC5803, 1ex. Lorestan Province, Sarabe- Presk Hamedan Province, Sarabe-Gian 20.06.2014. 29.06.2013. ZUTC 5804, 3ex. Lorestan Provine, Ecology: endogeic Koohdasht 29.06.2013. ZUTC 5805, 2ex. Lorestan Diagnosis: Clitellum on segment (24)25–32, Province, Chamar Village 30.06.2013. tubercles on segments 29–31. Dorsal pores are Ecology: endogeic readily visible, especially on the clitellum, 60–130 Diagnosis: Clitellum and tubercula respec- segments. tively extend on segments 27–34, 31–33. Tubercula Aporrectodea jassyensis (Michaelsen, 1891) bipartite, pigmentation absent, colour whitish- Aporrectodea jassyensis: Csuzdi & Zicsi 2003: 87 (for grey. Some specimens have extended prostomium complete synonymy) into a proboscis-like structure, 80–100 segments. Material examined: ZUTC 5831, 3 ex. Ker- Aporrectodea trapezoides (Dugès,