Discovering endemic species among the bumblebees of Taiwan (Apidae, genus Bombus)

ABSTRACT

It is well established that there are nine species of bumblebees indigenous to Taiwan, but what has been unclear is how many of them are endemic. We examine minimum divergence in COI barcodes and morphology between Taiwanese samples and some of the nearest mainland populations and compare the results with more detailed global coalescent analyses available for some of these species. Our results support separate status for four of the species, including the two species inferred to be endemic from coalescent and morphological evidence. We support the other five species as conspecific with mainland species, four of which are also inferred to be conspecific from coalescent and morphological evidence. This conclusion requires the description of one new endemic species, Bombus taiwanensis sp. nov., which can be diagnosed by integrated evidence from its COI (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I) barcodes, its colour pattern and its morphology.

KEYWORDS:

• DNA barcodes
• COI
• genetic divergence
• morphology
• species
• taxonomy

Acknowledgements

We thank all those who have collected specimens and maintained collections, especially Y.-Y. Yeh and W.-C. Yeh (TFRI). This work and the new species name have been registered with ZooBank under urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:F014F19B-A34F-4A70-8602-65CDCC84BD48.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

No additional funding was obtained for this study.