Morphological and molecular evidence for cryptic species of springsnails [genus Pseudamnicola (Corrosella) (Mollusca, Caenogastropoda, Hydrobiidae)]

Abstract

Several Pseudamnicola (Corrosella) populations of the central and eastern Iberian Peninsula have been ascribed to P. (C.) astieri (Dupuy, 1851), though recent evidence demonstrates the species could be endemic to the departments of Var and Alpes-Maritimes in France. Through the identification of cryptic species using a combined morphological and phylogenetic approach, this paper provides a detailed morphological description of P. (C.) astieri, clarifying its taxonomic boundaries and confirming it as a French endemic. In parallel, by comparing Pseudamnicola (Corrosella) populations from the provinces of Castellón and Valencia in Eastern Spain, it was observed that rather than P. (C.) astieri they represented a new species here described as P. (C.) hauffei sp. n. Among other characters, the two species show marked differences in shell shape, male and female genital systems, radular formula and concentration of the nervous system. P. (C.) hauffei sp. n. was also compared morphologically to another two Pseudamnicola (Corrosella) species living in nearby areas [P. (C.) hinzi Boeters, 1986 and P. (C.) navasiana (Fagot, 1907)], molecularly to P. (C.) falkneri (Boeters, 1970), the type species of the subgenus, and to the rest of the Pseudamnicola (Corrosella) species described so far. Morphological differentiation between the species is supported by a genetic divergence of 7.4% inferred from a partial sequence (658 bp) of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI). On the basis of an average 8% (5.39 to 11.15%) divergence estimated for the COI gene in other P. (Corrosella) species reported in GenBank, the existence of two specific entities is here proposed, which will have impact on conservation policies both in France and in Spain.