Molecular and morphological recognition of species boundaries in the neglected genus Brachymyrmex (: Formicidae): toward a taxonomic revision Claudia Ortiz-Sepulveda, Bert van Bocxlaer, Andrés Meneses, Fernando Fernandez

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Claudia Ortiz-Sepulveda, Bert van Bocxlaer, Andrés Meneses, Fernando Fernandez. Molecular and morphological recognition of species boundaries in the neglected ant genus Brachymyrmex (Hy- menoptera: Formicidae): toward a taxonomic revision. Organisms Diversity and Evolution, Springer Verlag, 2019, 19 (3), pp.447-542. ￿10.1007/s13127-019-00406-2￿. ￿hal-02323851￿

HAL Id: hal-02323851 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02323851 Submitted on 16 Aug 2021

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Manuscript submitted to: Organisms Diversity & Evolution Published version available; DOI: 10.1007/s13127-019-00406-2

1 Molecular and morphological recognition of species boundaries in the

2 neglected ant genus Brachymyrmex (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): towards a

3 taxonomic revision

4

5 Claudia M. Ortiz-Sepulveda1,2,*, Bert Van Bocxlaer1, Andrés D. Meneses2, Fernando Fernández2

6

7 1Université de Lille, CNRS, UMR 8198 - Evo-Eco-Paleo, F-59000 Lille, France.

8 2Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Carrera 30 # 45 – 03, Bogotá,

9 Colombia.

10 ORCID: CMOS: 0000-0003-0072-719X; BVB: 0000-0003-2033-326X.

11 * Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]; Tel.: +33 3 20 43 40 15.

12

13 ABSTRACT

14 Brachymyrmex is a neglected genus of because of its small body size, soft mesosoma

15 and superficially monotonous external morphology. These features have complicated the

16 documentation of morphological variation, resulting in poorly-defined and incompletely

17 described species. Consequently, the of the genus is complex and problematic, which

18 has impeded research and conservation efforts. Here we integrate molecular and morphological

19 data to recognize species boundaries in Brachymyrmex and to guide its long-overdue revision.

20 Specifically, we (1) redefine the limits of all described species, subspecies and varieties based on

21 intra- and interspecific morphological variation in workers; (2) document this variation

22 quantitatively by constructing morphospace occupation and statistically analyzing measurements;

23 (3) synthesize our findings on diagnostic traits in a dichotomous, illustrated identification key,

1

Manuscript submitted to: Organisms Diversity & Evolution Published version available; DOI: 10.1007/s13127-019-00406-2

24 and (4) examine the significance of our morphological identification system with molecular

25 evidence from four genes (EF1aEF1, EF1aEF2, WG and COI). We recognize 40 species, of

26 which four are new to science: B. bahamensis, B. bicolor, B. iridescens and B. sosai.

27 Furthermore, Brachymyrmex attenuatus and B. bonariensis are raised to species, and we propose

28 25 new synonyms. Morphometrics indicated that even poorly distinguishable species pairs show

29 statistically significant differences in some traits, and that taxonomically problematic cases