Coupling DNA barcodes and exon-capture to resolve the phylogeny of Turridae (Gastropoda, Conoidea)

Taxon sampling in most phylogenomic studies is often based on known taxa and/or morphospecies, thus ignoring undescribed diversity and/or cryptic lineages. The family Turridae is a group of venomous snails within the hyperdiverse superfamily Conoidea that includes many undescribed and cryptic species. Therefore 'traditional' taxon sampling could constitute a strong risk of undersampling or oversampling Turridae lineages. To minimize potential biases, we establish a robust sampling strategy, from species delimitation to phylogenomics. More than 3,000 cox-1 "barcode" sequences were used to propose 201 primary species hypotheses, nearly half of them corresponding to species potentially new to science, including several cryptic species. A 110-taxa exon-capture tree, including species representatives of the diversity uncovered with the cox-1 dataset, was build using up to 4,178 loci. Our results show the polyphyly of the genus Gemmula, that is split into up to 10 separate lineages, of which half would not have been detected if the sampling strategy was based only on described species. Our results strongly suggest that the use of blind, exploratory and intensive barcode sampling is necessary to avoid sampling biases in phylogenomic studies.

A global phylogeny of the deep-sea gastropod family Scaphandridae (Heterobranchia: Cephalaspidea): redefinition and generic classification

We present the most comprehensive phylogeny of a globally distributed deep-sea group of gastropods published to date including over 80% of the recognized diversity of the family Scaphandridae. The definition and taxonomic composition of the Scaphandridae has been hampered by the lack of a sound phylogenetic framework and definition of synapomorphic traits. We used a combination of molecular phylogenetics (Bayesian Inference and Maximum Likelihood) based on five gene markers (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA, 18S rRNA, and 28S rRNA) and morpho-anatomical characters to redefine the Scaphandridae and its genera. A new classification is proposed with the three genera Nipponoscaphander, Sabatia, and Scaphander. Main differences between genera lie on the shells (shape, parietal callus, spire) and male reproductive system (prostate). The species Hamineobulla kawamurai is reassigned to the closely related family Eoscaphandridae, currently defined mostly based on pleisiomorphic traits. Biogeographically the genus Nipponoscaphander is restricted to the Indo-West Pacific; Sabatia is mostly circumscribed to the Indo-West Pacific, but has one lineage present in the north Atlantic Ocean. Polyphyly across ocean realms prevails in the specious and globally distributed genus Scaphander with multiple speciation events between Indo-Pacific and Atlantic lineages but also with several episodes of cladogenesis within realms. Two rare cases of species with a broad distribution spanning the Indo-West Pacific and Atlantic realms are confirmed (S. meridionalis and S. nobilis).

Few and far apart: integrative taxonomy of Australian species of Gladiobela and Pagodibela (Conoidea : Raphitomidae) reveals patterns of wide distributions and low abundance

The deep-sea malacofauna of temperate Australia remains comparatively poorly known. However, a recent influx of DNA-suitable material obtained from a series of deep-sea cruises has facilitated integrative taxonomic study on the Conoidea (Caenogastropoda:Neogastropoda). Building on a recent molecular phylogeny of the conoidean family Raphitomidae, this study focussed on the genera Gladiobela and Pagodibela (both Criscione, Hallan, Puillandre & Fedosov, 2020). We subjected a representative mtDNA cox1 dataset of deep-sea raphitomids to ABGD, which recognised 14 primary species hypotheses (PSHs), 9 of which were converted to secondary species hypotheses (SSHs). Following the additional examination of the shell and hypodermic radula features, as well as consideration of bathymetric and geographic data, seven of these SSHs were recognised as new to science and given full species rank. Subsequently, systematic descriptions are provided herein. Of these, five are attributed to Gladiobela (three of which are endemic to Australia and two more widely distributed) and two are placed in Pagodibela (one endemic to southern Australia and one widespread in the Pacific). The rarity of many ‘turrids’ reported in previous studies is confirmed herein, as particularly indicated by highly disjunct geographic records for two taxa. Additionally, several of the studied taxa exhibit wide Indo-Pacific distributions, suggesting that wide geographic ranges in deep-sea ‘turrids’ may be more common than previously assumed. Finally, impediments to deep-sea ‘turrid’ taxonomy in light of such comparative rarity and unexpectedly wide distributions are discussed.