Taxonomic status of the disjunct populations of the resin bee Anthidiellum breviusculum (Pérez, 1890) s.l. in the Mediterranean (Apoidea: Anthidiini)

ABSTRACT

The resin bee Anthidiellum troodicum (Mavromoustakis, 1949) was originally described from Cyprus as a subspecies of the West Mediterranean Anthidiellum breviusculum (Pérez, 1890). Although the distinctiveness of these two taxa at the species level was recognised by Andreas Müller in 1996, this finding has not found its way into the literature. Examination of new material confirms the distinct taxonomic identity of these two species, with A. troodicum being widely distributed in the eastern and A. breviusculum in the western Mediterranean, with no geographic overlap. Additionally, the geographically separated population in North Africa was found to be a distinct species, described here as A. africanum Kasparek sp. nov. While phenotypic characteristics would place it close to A. troodicum, a phylogenetic tree inferred from the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene fragment (658 bp DNA barcodes) indicates that it is closer to A. breviusculum. The clades representing these three taxa are well supported in a bootstrap analysis, with maximum likelihood values between 87 and 100%. The average genetic distance between A. africanum sp. nov. and A. breviusculum is low (at 2.4%), while it is higher between A. troodicum and A. africanum (at 4.7%) and between A. troodicum and A. breviusculum (at 6.2%).

http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:FE72A30D-7893-46D4-A34F-24A0C32BB190

KEYWORDS:

• New species
• allopatry
• disjunct distribution

Acknowledgements

We thank our friends and colleagues who provided material for this study: Ramadane Abdelkarim, Tébessa (Algeria), Xaver van Achter, Mons (Belgium), Mira Boustani (Mons, Belgium), Ian Cross (Dorchester, United Kingdom), Father Andreas W. Ebmer (Puchenau, Austria), Alexander V. Fateryga (Feodosiya, Crimea), Martin Hauser (Sacramento, USA), Gerhard Hölzler (Vienna, Austria), Emin Kaplan (Bingöl, Turkey), Wolf-Harald Liebig (Bad Muskau, Germany), Christian Schmid-Egger (Berlin, Germany), Maximilian Schwarz (Ansfelden, Austria), Marc Török (Travenbrück, Germany) and Androulla Varnava (Limassol, Cyprus). We also thank the Natural History Museum and Botanical Garden, University of Tartu, Estonia (Villu Soon), Biologiezentrum Linz, Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum, Austria (Esther Ockermüller), and the Zoological Museum of Hamburg University, Germany (Martin Husemann) for the loan of material.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The material deposited at the Natural History Museum London, United Kingdom, was screened by MK during a research visit funded by SYNTHESYS, a European Commission-funded project, creating an integrated European infrastructure for natural history collections. SF was supported by an individual research contract (2020.03526.CEECIND) funded by FCT. TJW is supported by an FRS-FNRS fellowship (Chargé de recherches).