How to fail at species delimitation.
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TLDR
Researchers should apply a wide range of species delimitation analyses to their data and place their trust in delimitations that are congruent across methods, for in most contexts it is better to fail to delimit species than it is to falsely delimit entities that do not represent actual evolutionary lineages.Abstract:
Species delimitation is the act of identifying species-level biological diversity. In recent years, the field has witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of methods available for delimiting species. However, most recent investigations only utilize a handful (i.e. 2–3) of the available methods, often for unstated reasons. Because the parameter space that is potentially relevant to species delimitation far exceeds the parameterization of any existing method, a given method necessarily makes a number of simplifying assumptions, any one of which could be violated in a particular system. We suggest that researchers should apply a wide range of species delimitation analyses to their data and place their trust in delimitations that are congruent across methods. Incongruence across the results from different methods is evidence of either a difference in the power to detect cryptic lineages across one or more of the approaches used to delimit species and could indicate that assumptions of one or more of the methods have been violated. In either case, the inferences drawn from species delimitation studies should be conservative, for in most contexts it is better to fail to delimit species than it is to falsely delimit entities that do not represent actual evolutionary lineages.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Multilocus phylogeny and phylogenomics of Eriochrysis P. Beauv. (Poaceae-Andropogoneae): Taxonomic implications and evidence of interspecific hybridization.
Cassiano A. D. Welker,Tatiana T. Souza-Chies,Hilda Maria Longhi-Wagner,Myriam Carolina Peichoto,Michael R. McKain,Elizabeth A. Kellogg +5 more
TL;DR: The set of low-copy nuclear genes used in this study seems to be sufficient to resolve phylogenetic relationships and define the circumscriptions of other species complexes in the grass family and relatives, even in the presence of polyploidy and reticulate evolution.
Journal ArticleDOI
Exploring the Leaf Beetle Fauna (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) of an Ecuadorian Mountain Forest Using DNA Barcoding.
Birthe Thormann,Dirk Ahrens,Diego Marín Armijos,Marcell K. Peters,Thomas Wagner,Johann W. Wägele +5 more
TL;DR: This study suggests that when applied to species communities on a regionally limited level with high amount of rare species, the choice of species delimitation method can be of minor relevance for assessing species numbers and turnover in tropical insect communities.
Journal ArticleDOI
Sampling related individuals within ponds biases estimates of population structure in a pond-breeding amphibian.
Kyle A. O’Connell,Kyle A. O’Connell,Kevin P. Mulder,Jose A. Maldonado,Kathleen L. Currie,Dennis M. Ferraro +5 more
TL;DR: It is found that reduced sample sizes influenced parameter estimates more than the inclusion of siblings, but that within‐pond relatedness led to the inference of spurious population structure when analyses depended on allele frequencies.
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Cryptic diversity and molecular systematics of the Aegean Ophiomorus skinks (Reptilia: Squamata), with the description of a new species
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Genomic data reveal deep genetic structure but no support for current taxonomic designation in a grasshopper species complex.
TL;DR: This study highlights the importance of integrative approaches to identify taxonomic units and elucidate the evolutionary history of species and shows how traditional taxonomy has led to species designations that are supported neither by high throughput sequencing data nor by the quantitative integration of genomic information with other sources of evidence.
References
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