Unraveling the evolutionary history of the cave-dwelling Dysderidae in the Dinarides

Abstract

Because of their size, abundance and active predatory lifestyle, spiders of the family Dysderidae are among the most conspicuous creatures in the Dinaric caves. Historically, the interest for this group dates back to 1847, to the description of the first cave spider in the world, Stalita taenaria , and peaks in the middle of 20 th century with the works of Joseph Kratochvíl and Christa L. Deeleman-Reinhold among others. However, after all these years, an explicit phylogenetic hypothesis about the family relationships is still missing and the taxonomy of some genera is a matter of debate. Dinaric cave representatives belong to two subfamilies: Rhodinae, with 13 species from five genera ( Rhode , Stalita , Parastalita , Mesostalita and Stalitella ) and Harpacteinae, with eight species from two genera ( Folkia and Stalagtia ). All species are considered troglobiotic and are Dinaric endemics, with Harpacteine restricted to the south part of the Dinaric Mountains and Rhodinae (with few exceptions) to the north part. Here, we present the results of a mutli-locus phylogenetic analysis of the family combining mitochondrial and nuclear genes of the focal group along with representatives of the other dysderid genera. Our data reveal a more complex taxonomic structure than currently recognized, with several instances of paraphyly, and uncover some overlooked diversity at the species level.

Full text

ARPHA Conference Abstracts 1: e29975
doi: 10.3897/aca.1.e29975
Conference Abstract
Unraveling the evolutionary history of the cave-
dwelling Dysderidae in the Dinarides
Martina Pavlek , Miquel A. Arnedo , Fulvio Gasparo , Silvia Adrian
‡ Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
§ Croatian Biospeleological Society, Zagreb, Croatia
| University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
¶ Commissione Grotte 'E. Boegan’, SAG-CAI, Via Donota 2, I-34121, Trieste, Italy
Corresponding author: Martina Pavlek (martina.pavlek@gmail.com)
Received: 21 Sep 2018 | Published: 26 Sep 2018
Citation: Pavlek M, Arnedo M, Gasparo F, Adrian S (2018) Unraveling the evolutionary history of the cave-
dwelling Dysderidae in the Dinarides. ARPHA Conference Abstracts 1: e29975.
https://doi.org/10.3897/aca.1.e29975
Abstract
Because of their size, abundance and active predatory lifestyle, spiders of the family
Dysderidae are among the most conspicuous creatures in the Dinaric caves. Historically,
the interest for this group dates back to 1847, to the description of the first cave spider in
the world, Stalita taenaria, and peaks in the middle of 20 century with the works of Joseph
Kratochvíl and Christa L. Deeleman-Reinhold among others. However, after all these
years, an explicit phylogenetic hypothesis about the family relationships is still missing and
the taxonomy of some genera is a matter of debate. Dinaric cave representatives belong to
two subfamilies: Rhodinae, with 13 species from five genera (Rhode, Stalita, Parastalita,
Mesostalita and Stalitella) and Harpacteinae, with eight species from two genera (Folkia
and Stalagtia). All species are considered troglobiotic and are Dinaric endemics, with
Harpacteine restricted to the south part of the Dinaric Mountains and Rhodinae (with few
exceptions) to the north part. Here, we present the results of a mutli-locus phylogenetic
analysis of the family combining mitochondrial and nuclear genes of the focal group along
with representatives of the other dysderid genera. Our data reveal a more complex
taxonomic structure than currently recognized, with several instances of paraphyly, and
uncover some overlooked diversity at the species level.
‡,§ | ¶ ‡
th
© Pavlek M et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY
4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are
credited.

Presenting author
Martina Pavlek
2Pavlek M et al