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Genital morphology, a cornerstone in taxonomy that predates Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae, is vital for species delimitation. However, the widely accepted paradigm that genitalia are taxonomically informative lacks robust testing between closely related species, and supporting evidence is often limited to taxonomic literature in which genitalia are as...
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... sample selection, priority was given to samples, including nest series with representations of queens and males alongside workers. See Supplementary Table S1 for a complete summary of taxon sampling for sequencing. Specimens used in this study are deposited at the following institutions: ...Context 2
... extraction, we mounted and retained all specimens as vouchers to be deposited in the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History insect collection (USNM). See Supplementary Table S1 for collection and locality data of all voucher specimens. To assess sample quality, we quantified the DNA extracts using a high-sensitivity kit on a Qubit 2.0 fluorometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Waltham, MA, USA). ...Citations
Globally, potentially hundreds of Nylanderia species remain undescribed, hidden within several broadly distributed complexes of morphologically cryptic species. By integrating phylogenomics, geography, and morphology, we describe eight new Nylanderia species from southern Mexico and Mesoamerica, increasing the total number of known species in the genus to 131. In the Americas, Nylanderia is divided into two distantly related clades: American Clade I (AC1) and American Clade II (AC2). Within AC1, Nylanderia austroccidua (Trager) was originally described as a widespread and morphologically variable species distributed from Utah to Costa Rica. This species was diagnosed by a slight concavity in the anterior face of the pronotum and varying degrees of fine cuticular microsculpturing across the body that causes blue cuticular iridescence under microscopic examination. Using Ultraconserved Elements (UCEs) for molecular phylogenetic analysis, we found that taxa matching the original description of N. austroccidua are paraphyletic with respect to Nearctic Nylanderia species. We also found that AC1 includes a Neotropical subclade extending into Mesoamerica, the distribution of which overlaps with AC2, which is exclusively Neotropical. Along with an updated description of N. austroccidua, we also describe the following new species belonging to clade AC1: N. breviscapa, sp. nov., N. contraria, sp. nov., N. lazulina, sp. nov., N. luceata, sp. nov., N. mendax sp. nov., N. mosaica sp. nov., N. polita sp. nov., and N. usul, sp. nov. A dichotomous key and images of the worker caste of these species are included and, where available, images of queens and males are provided.
