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Citation for Study 15464

Citation title: "Global biodiversity assessment and hyper-cryptic species complexes: more than one species of elephant in the room?".

Study name: "Global biodiversity assessment and hyper-cryptic species complexes: more than one species of elephant in the room?".

This study is part of submission 15464 (Status: Published).

Citation

Adams M., Raadik T.A., Burridge C.P., & Georges A. 2014. Global biodiversity assessment and hyper-cryptic species complexes: more than one species of elephant in the room?. Systematic Biology, .

Authors

• Adams M.
• Raadik T.A.
• Burridge C.P. (submitter) +61362267653
• Georges A.

Abstract

Several recent estimates of global biodiversity have concluded that the total number of species on earth lies near the lower end of the wide range touted in previous decades. However, none of these recent estimates formally explore the real ?elephant in the room?, namely what proportion of species are taxonomically invisible to conventional assessments, and thus, as undiagnosed cryptic species, remain uncountable until revealed by multi-gene molecular assessments. Here we explore the significance and extent of so-called ?hyper-cryptic? species complexes, using the Australian freshwater fish Galaxias olidus as a proxy for any organism whose taxonomy ought to be largely finalized when compared to those in little-studied or morphologically-undifferentiated groups. Our comprehensive allozyme (838 fish for 54 putative loci), mtDNA (557 fish for 605bp of cytb), and morphological (1963−3389 vouchers for 17−46 characters) assessment of this species across its broad geographic range revealed a 1500% increase in species-level biodiversity, and suggested that additional taxa may remain undiscovered. Importantly, while all 15 candidate species were morphologically diagnosable a posteriori from one another, single-gene DNA barcoding proved largely unsuccessful as an a priori method for species identification. Two strong inferences flow from our results. First, hyper-cryptic complexes are likely to be common in most organismal groups. Second, no assessment of species numbers can be considered ?best practice? in the molecular age unless it explicitly includes estimates of the extent of cryptic and hyper-cryptic biodiversity.

Keywords

species counts, global estimates, species richness, mega-complex, mountain galaxias, single-gene barcoding, Galaxiidae

External links

About this resource

• Canonical resource URI: http://purl.org/phylo/treebase/phylows/study/TB2:S15464
• Other versions: Nexus NeXML
• Show BibTeX reference

  		@ARTICLE{TreeBASE2Ref22929,
  	 author = {Mark  Adams and Tarmo A Raadik and Christopher Paul Burridge and Arthur  Georges},
  	 title = {Global biodiversity assessment and hyper-cryptic species complexes: more than one species of elephant in the room?},
  	 year = {2014},
  	 keywords = {species counts, global estimates, species richness, mega-complex, mountain galaxias, single-gene barcoding, Galaxiidae},
  	 doi = {},
  	 url = {http://},
  	 pmid = {},
  	 journal = {Systematic Biology},
  	 volume = {},
  	 number = {},
  	 pages = {},
  	 abstract = {Several recent estimates of global biodiversity have concluded that the total number of species on earth lies near the lower end of the wide range touted in previous decades. However, none of these recent estimates formally explore the real ?elephant in the room?, namely what proportion of species are taxonomically invisible to conventional assessments, and thus, as undiagnosed cryptic species, remain uncountable until revealed by multi-gene molecular assessments. Here we explore the significance and extent of so-called ?hyper-cryptic? species complexes, using the Australian freshwater fish Galaxias olidus as a proxy for any organism whose taxonomy ought to be largely finalized when compared to those in little-studied or morphologically-undifferentiated groups. Our comprehensive allozyme (838 fish for 54 putative loci), mtDNA (557 fish for 605bp of cytb), and morphological (1963−3389 vouchers for 17−46 characters) assessment of this species across its broad geographic range revealed a 1500% increase in species-level biodiversity, and suggested that additional taxa may remain undiscovered. Importantly, while all 15 candidate species were morphologically diagnosable a posteriori from one another, single-gene DNA barcoding proved largely unsuccessful as an a priori method for species identification. Two strong inferences flow from our results. First, hyper-cryptic complexes are likely to be common in most organismal groups. Second, no assessment of species numbers can be considered ?best practice? in the molecular age unless it explicitly includes estimates of the extent of cryptic and hyper-cryptic biodiversity.}
  }
  		

• Show RIS reference

  		TY  - JOUR
  ID  - 22929
  AU  - Adams,Mark 
  AU  - Raadik,Tarmo A
  AU  - Burridge,Christopher Paul
  AU  - Georges,Arthur 
  T1  - Global biodiversity assessment and hyper-cryptic species complexes: more than one species of elephant in the room?
  PY  - 2014
  KW  - species counts
  KW  - global estimates
  KW  - species richness
  KW  - mega-complex
  KW  - mountain galaxias
  KW  - single-gene barcoding
  KW  - Galaxiidae
  UR  - http://dx.doi.org/
  N2  - Several recent estimates of global biodiversity have concluded that the total number of species on earth lies near the lower end of the wide range touted in previous decades. However, none of these recent estimates formally explore the real ?elephant in the room?, namely what proportion of species are taxonomically invisible to conventional assessments, and thus, as undiagnosed cryptic species, remain uncountable until revealed by multi-gene molecular assessments. Here we explore the significance and extent of so-called ?hyper-cryptic? species complexes, using the Australian freshwater fish Galaxias olidus as a proxy for any organism whose taxonomy ought to be largely finalized when compared to those in little-studied or morphologically-undifferentiated groups. Our comprehensive allozyme (838 fish for 54 putative loci), mtDNA (557 fish for 605bp of cytb), and morphological (1963−3389 vouchers for 17−46 characters) assessment of this species across its broad geographic range revealed a 1500% increase in species-level biodiversity, and suggested that additional taxa may remain undiscovered. Importantly, while all 15 candidate species were morphologically diagnosable a posteriori from one another, single-gene DNA barcoding proved largely unsuccessful as an a priori method for species identification. Two strong inferences flow from our results. First, hyper-cryptic complexes are likely to be common in most organismal groups. Second, no assessment of species numbers can be considered ?best practice? in the molecular age unless it explicitly includes estimates of the extent of cryptic and hyper-cryptic biodiversity.
  L3  - 
  JF  - Systematic Biology
  VL  - 
  IS  - 
  ER  -