Research Article |
Corresponding author: André Reimann ( andre.reimann@senckenberg.de ) Academic editor: Frank Menzel
© 2024 André Reimann, Björn Rulik.
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.
Citation:
Reimann A, Rulik B (2024) The Lonchaeidae (Diptera) of the GBOL project, with the description of a new Priscoearomyia species. Contributions to Entomology 74(2): 165-179. https://doi.org/10.3897/contrib.entomol.74.e127094
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The investigation of 331 specimens of the acalypterate dipteran family Lonchaeidae within the GBOL-project resulted in a list of 29 species from which one is new to science, Priscoearomyia bausenbergensis sp. nov., and four species represent new records for Germany. For all voucher specimens detailed metadata are provided including validated DNA barcodes. These barcodes build a sound reference basis for future molecular identification of lonchaeid flies and will also allow the inclusion of female specimens in biodiversity studies, when morphological characters for separating these females are not available.
COI barcodes, DNA analysis, Europe, faunistics, France, Germany, Lonchaeidae, new records, new species, taxonomy
Lonchaeidae is a small family of acalypterate flies, which is distributed worldwide. In Europe, approximately 100 species are known to occur with about 60 in Germany (see
Since 2011 the German Barcode of Life project (GBOL) acts as a national barcoding campaign and builds up a voucher-based barcode reference library (Geiger et al. 2016). So far roughly half of the German animal diversity is documented, while the megadiverse groups of Diptera or Hymenoptera are highly underrepresented. Both are present with more than 10.000 species in Germany. Therefore, the recent phase – GBOL III: Dark Taxa – is concentrating especially on micro flies and wasps. But even other small dipteran taxa need some serious attention and will reveal more diversity as known before.
In the present study we combine results with reverse identification approaches out of the Global Malaise trap Program (GMP).
The majority of the material examined was caught with three Malaise traps in Rhineland-Palatine in the administrative district Ahrweiler. The remaining samples are from different localities in other federal states of Germany and France (Fig.
Map with the sample locations for the data presented here. Map created at GPSVisualizer.com. Map data from OpenStreetMap.org under Open Data Commons Open Database License (opendatacommons.org).
All specimens except the non-GBOL material are stored in purified ethanol at -20 °C. For morphological identification genitalia were dissected, if needed and treated with KOH-solution (5% in aq.) at 70 °C for 30–60 min., then neutralized with acetic acid (5% in aq.) and rinsed in distilled water. The genitalia are stored in small silicon tubes with the respective specimen. From the non GBOL material one specimen is pinned and the genitalia are mounted on a glass slide; the others are stored in denaturated ethanol (70% in aq).
The lonchaeids were morphologically identified using the keys of Collin (1953),
After morphological identification most of the specimens were barcoded following the established GBOL procedure:
Tissue was subsampled from each specimen and transferred into 96 well plates for subsequent DNA extraction. For specimens larger than 2 mm 1–3 legs were used for lysis. For very small specimens (≤ 2 mm) the whole body was used non-destructively for lysis (i.e., subsequent voucher recovery). Genomic DNA was extracted using the BioSprint96 magnetic bead extractor and respective kits by Qiagen (Hilden, Germany). Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was carried out in a total reaction volume of 20 μl, including 2 μl of undiluted DNA template, 0.8 μl of each primer (10 pmol/μl), 2 μl of ‘Q-Solution’ and 10 μl of ‘Multiplex PCR Master Mix’, containing hot start Taq DNA polymerase and buffers. The latter components are available in the Multiplex PCR kit by Qiagen (Hilden, Germany).
Thermal cycling was performed on GeneAmp PCR System 2700 machines (Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA, USA) as follows: hot start Taq activation: 15 min at 95 °C; first cycle set (15 repeats): 35 s denaturation at 94 °C, 90 s annealing at 55 °C (-1 °C/cycle) and 90 s extension at 72 °C. Second cycle set (25 repeats): 35 s denaturation at 94 °C, 90 s annealing at 40 °C and 90 s extension at 72 °C; final elongation 10 min at 72 °C. As established within GBOL at
A minor fraction of specimens was processed within the Global Malaise trap Program (GMP) and the CCDB standard barcoding procedures were applied (https://ccdb.ca/resources/).
Sequences were semi-automatically edited, assembled using the MUSCLE alignment approach (Edgar 2004) and checked for the occurrence of stop-codons or hints of nuclear mitochondrial DNA segments (NUMTs) in GENEIOUS version 7.1.9 (http://www.geneious.com; Kearse et al. 2012). All metadata of specimens treated here were deposited in GBIF (https://biocase.zfmk.de/ipt/resource?r=gbolonch); further details like voucher information such as locality data, habitat, collector, identifier, taxonomic classifications, DNA barcode sequences, primer pairs, the sequence data and trace files were deposited in BOLD (https://doi.org/10.5883/DS-GBOLONCH) and subsequently also transferred to GenBank (accession numbers: OP831582–OP831877 and KT781862–KT781863).
A neighbour-joining tree was obtained using the Tamura-Nei model without outgroup (
Distance statistics were calculated using DiStats (
The following abbreviations and terms are used in the text or in the Suppl. materials
Subfamily Dasiopinae Morge, 1963
Dasiops Rondani, 1856
GERMANY • Rhineland-Palatinate; Ahrweiler, 50.55193°N, 7.16998°E; 194 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (GBOL-223965312), 11 March 2014; 1 male (GBOL-223967397), 01 July 2014; both Rulik leg.; both in
GERMANY • Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania; Putbus; 54.32506°N, 13.53878°E; 27 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 6 females (
GERMANY • North Rhine-Westphalia; Schladern near Windeck; 50.8°N, 7.585°E; 124 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 2 females (
Tribe Earomyini Morge, 1963
Chaetolonchaea Czerny, 1934
GERMANY • Rhineland-Palatinate; Ahrweiler; 50.55175°N, 7.17226°E; 271 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 male (
GERMANY • Hesse; Sinntal; 50.27755°N, 9.61509°E; 356 m a.s.l.; sweep net; 1 male (
GERMANY • Rhineland-Palatinate; Ahrweiler; 50.46541°N, 7.2259°E; 292 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 male (
GERMANY • Hesse; Lorch; 50.04912°N, 7.79777°E; 246 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
Holotype
: GERMANY • male (
Paratypes
: GERMANY • 1 female (
FRANCE • 1 male (
Male: Head. Eye with sparse very short hairs. Frons and face completely greyish brown dusted. 9 to 10 frontal setulae in a row along the eye margins, 16 scattered interfrontal setulae. Orbital seta strong and long (0.35 mm), as long as outer vertical seta. Inner vertical seta slightly longer than outer vertical seta. Orbital plate dusted, with a shining central streak, bare apart from orbital seta. Ocellar seta strong, as long as orbital seta. Few scattered ocellar setulae, 0.25 times as long as ocellar seta. Lunula bare. Four anterior genal setulae in a single row. Postpedicel short, oval, not reaching mouth edge, 1.5 times as long as wide, distinct orange spot on the basal medial surface, which occupies approximately one third of the inner surface. Arista two times as long as postpedicel, short pubescent.
Thorax. Thoracic dorsum black, dusted greyish brown, covered in setulae one third length of orbital seta. Scutellum completely dusted greyish brown, no obvious contrast to thoracic dorsum, bare apart from the 4 marginal setae. Lateral sclerites completely dusted. Anepisternum with anterodorsal seta absent, three strong posterior setae in a dorsoventral row, approximately 12–16 scattered setulae on disc. Katepisternum with two strong posterior seta and one to two weaker anterior setae in an irregular row close to the dorsal margin, central part bare, approximately 4–7 setulae ventrally. One seta on proepimeron and one on proepisternum. Calypter yellow-white with light brown fringe. Wings yellowish in anterior half, turning slightly brownish towards wing tip, posterior half whitish yellow. Veins yellowish basally turning brownish towards wing tip. All legs entirely black.
Abdomen. Tergite 5 2.2 times the length of tergite 4, funnel-shaped in dorsal view, strongly narrowing in posterior half, with a closely spaced group of 6 stiff setulae on each side before the apex. A small triangular membraneous area on central anterior margin (Fig.
Male terminalia. Epandrium (ep) short, belt like, three times as high as long (Figs
Drawings of male (A–D) and female (E) genitalia of Priscoearomyia bausenbergensis sp. nov.: A. Lateral view of epandrium; B. Posterior view of epandrium and associated structures; C. Lateral view of phallus and parameres; D. Ventral view of phallus and parameres; E. Lateral (above) and dorsal (below) view of female ovipositor.
Measurements : Body length 3.74 mm. Wing length 3.60 mm.
Female: Head. As in male. Postpedicel oval, reaching mouth edge, 1.6 times as long as wide. Distinct orange spot at the basal inner surface. Arista 1.75 times as long as postpedicel, short pubescent.
Thorax. Thoracic dorsum sub-shining black, completely dusted greyish brown, anteriorly covered in setulae one third length of orbital seta, posterior to the suture some setulae reaching almost half the length of orbital seta. Scutellum completely dusted greyish brown, dusting stronger than on thoracic dorsum, with 4 marginal setae (only bases visible in paratype). Lateral sclerites completely dusted. Anepisternum with no anterodorsal seta and three strong posterior setae in a dorsoventral row. With a few scattered setulae on disc. Katepisternum with two strong posterior setae and two weaker (half the length of the posterior) in an irregular row close to the dorsal margin, central part bare, 7 setulae ventrally. One seta on proepimeron and one on proepisternum. Calypter yellow-white with light brown fringe. Wings yellowish in anterior half, turning slightly brownish towards wing tip, posterior half yellowish white. Veins yellowish basally turning brownish towards wing tip. Only hind legs present in female paratype, entirely black.
Abdomen. Tergites completely brownish dusted. Sternites completely dusted. Aculeus black with yellow tip. Apical segment as in Fig.
Measurements : Body length 3.26 mm. Wing length 3.43 mm.
This species is named after the collecting site of the male holotype.
Unknown.
Only known from Europe (Germany, France).
With the plate-like hypoproct and epandrium without well sclerotized ventral lobes, this species belongs to a group with P. greciana (McAlpine, 1983) and P. hermoensis MacGowan & Freidberg, 2008. It differs from both mentioned species by the shape of the phallus, which is more or less U-shaped in P. greciana and P. hermoensis (see
1 | Epandrium without an obvious ventral lobe, hypoproct wider than long, in form of a disc, prensisetae absent (greciana group) | 2 |
– | Epandrium with a square or rectangular ventral lobe, hypoproct not disc shaped, prensisetae present (other Priscoearomyia species) | 3 |
2 | Abdominal tergite 5 elongated, strongly narrowing before tip | 2a |
– | Abdominal tergite 5 not elongated. Apical lobes of hypoproct with finger-like projections laterally, outer margin of surstyli obviously serrated. Phallus U-shaped, thickened with basal processes | P. hermonensis MacGowan & Freidberg |
2a | Abdominal tergite 5 without median triangular membaneous area. Apical lobes of hypoproct rounded, without processes, surstyli with multiserial rows of denticles along outer margin and extending over posterior surface. Phallus narrow and sinuous | P. greciana McAlpine |
– | Abdominal tergite 5 with median triangular membaneous area. Apical lobes of hypoproct very broad, without processes, medially enclosing oval incision. Surstyli extending ventromedially from the shell of the epandrium as two lightly sclerotized processes covered in very short thick-based setulae. Phallus Z-shaped | P. bausenbergensis sp. nov. |
GERMANY • Rhineland-Palatinate; Ahrweiler; 50.4647°N, 7.22215°E; 321 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 2 females (
GERMANY • Hesse; Lorch; 50.04912°N, 7.79777°E; 246 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
GERMANY • Rhineland-Palatinate; Ahrweiler; 50.55175°N, 7.17226°E; 271 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 male (
GERMANY • Hesse; Lorch; 50.04912°N, 7.79777°E; 246 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 male (
Lonchaea Fallén, 1820
GERMANY • Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania; Zartwitz; car-net; 1 male (
GERMANY • Rhineland-Palatinate; Ahrweiler; 50.55175°N, 7.17226°E; 271 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 3 females (
New to Germany.
GERMANY • Lower Saxony; Lüchow-Dannenberg; 53.04133°N, 11.47986°E; 19 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
GERMANY • North Rhine-Westphalia; Hennef; 50.8°N, 7.585°E; 124 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
New to Germany.
GERMANY • Rhineland-Palatinate; Ahrweiler; 50.55175°N, 7.17226°E; 271 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 3 males (
GERMANY • North Rhine-Westphalia; Hennef; 50.8°N, 7.585°E; 124 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 male (
New to Germany.
GERMANY • Rhineland-Palatinate; Ahrweiler; 50.55175°N, 7.17226°E; 271 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 male (
New to Germany.
GERMANY • North Rhine-Westphalia; Schladern near Windeck; 50.8°N, 7.585°E; 124 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
GERMANY • North Rhine-Westphalia; Hennef; 50.8°N, 7.585°E; 124 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
GERMANY • Saxony-Anhalt; Harzgerode; 51.66887°N, 11.16425°E; 281 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
GERMANY • North Rhine-Westphalia; Hennef; 50.8°N, 7.585°E; 124 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
GERMANY • Rhineland-Palatinate; Ahrweiler; 50.55175°N, 7.17226°E; 271 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
GERMANY • Hesse; Sinntal; 50.27645°N, 9.61269°E; 5 m a.s.l.; net sweeping; 1 female (
GERMANY • Lower Saxony; Lüchow-Dannenberg; 53.04133°N, 11.47986°E; 19 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 3 females (
GERMANY • Hesse; Lorch; 50.04912°N, 7.79777°E; 246 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 6 females (
GERMANY • North Rhine-Westphalia; Hennef; 50.8°N, 7.585°E; 124 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
GERMANY • Hesse; Sinntal; 50.29290°N, 9.55060°E; 374 m a.s.l.; net sweeping; 1 male (
This specimen could not be assigned to L. spicata with confidence and holotype comparison was not possible due to unavailability. Therefore, we could only assign the specimen to L. cf. spicata.
Note. There are four barcode clusters (LG1–LG4) with specimens that show morphological similarities to L. limatula.
Cluster LG1
Material. GERMANY • Rhineland-Palatinate; Ahrweiler; 50.55175°N, 7.17226°E; 271 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
Remarks. There was no respective male in our sampling. Therefore, this female could not be assigned to species level by barcoding.
Cluster LG2
Material. GERMANY • Saxony-Anhalt; Harzgerode; 51.66887°N, 11.16425°E; 281 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
Remarks. There was no respective male in our sampling. Therefore, this female could not be assigned to species level by barcoding.
Cluster LG3
Material. GERMANY • Rhineland-Palatinate; Ahrweiler; 50.55175°N, 7.17226°E; 271 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
Remarks. There was no respective male in our sampling. Therefore, this female could not be assigned to species level by barcoding.
Cluster LG4
Material. GERMANY • Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania; Putbus; 54.32506°N, 13.53878°E; 27 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
Remarks. There was no respective male in our sampling. Therefore, these females could not be assigned to species level by barcoding. Comparison to data on BOLD indicates, that this is most probably Lonchaea contigua Collin, 1953.
Note. There are three barcode clusters (MG1–MG3) with specimens that show morphological similarities to L. mallochi.
Cluster MG1
Material. GERMANY • North Rhine-Westphalia; Wesel; 51.64820°N, 6.70026°E; 27 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
Remarks. There was no respective male in our sampling. Therefore, these females could not be assigned to species level by barcoding.
Cluster MG2
Material. GERMANY • Hesse; Lorch; 50.04912°N, 7.79777°E; 246 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
Remarks. There was no respective male in our sampling. Therefore, this female could not be assigned to species level by barcoding.
Cluster MG3
Material. GERMANY • North Rhine-Westphalia; Wesel; 51.64820°N, 6.70026°E; 27 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 2 females (
Remarks. There was no respective male in our sampling. Therefore, these females could not be assigned to species level by barcoding.
Note. There is one barcode from a specimen that shows morphological similarities to L. peregrina.
Material. GERMANY • Lower Saxony; Lüchow-Dannenberg; 53.04133°N, 11.47986°E; 19 m a.s.l.; Malaise trap; 1 female (
Remarks. There was no respective male in our sampling. Therefore, this female could not be assigned to species level by barcoding.
GERMANY • Baden-Württemberg; Oberbergen; 48.09677°N, 7.67622°E; 387 m a.s.l.; pitfall trap; 1 female (
Our sampling includes 331 specimens of which 68 are males and 263 are females. Barcoding resulted in COI-sequences of 298 specimens, which allowed us to identify most of the female specimens which could not be identified by morphology. All specimens and the according BOLD and GenBank accession numbers for successfully sequenced material are listed in Suppl. material
Average COI sequence length for the 298 sequences was 653 bp of 658 bp full barcode length, including twenty-four shorter sequences composed from 561 to 648 residues, respectively.
Among nucleotides, there was a compositional bias towards AT: 66.6% especially at third codon positions (average 90.1%) which is close to levels previously reported for other Diptera groups (e.g.,
Altogether, 37,401 pairwise distances were computed for our dataset: of these, 6,560 were intraspecific distances.
Maximum intraspecific distances averaged 0.52% (range 0–2.13%) while the nearest neighbor distance averaged 6.93% (range 2.28–13.07% – 14.3%), roughly 13-fold higher than the maximum intraspecific distance (Fig.
Barcode gab analysis. Relationship between maximum intraspecific and nearest neighbor p-distances. Points above the diagonal line indicate species with a barcode gap. Molecular species delimitation by ASAP and BINs suggests 38 putative species, which fits well with our morphological findings (Fig.
Our combined analysis resulted in a list of 29 species from which one, Priscoearomyia bausenbergensis is new to science. Furthermore, it includes eight well separated female only molecular clusters (see Suppl. material
In our sampling there were many more females than males. For most genera in the Lonchaeidae aerial swarming behavior of the males is known (
We would like to thank all collectors and providers of lonchaeid material to the GBOL project and the collectors of additional material: Claudia Gack, Nicola Grasse, Joachim Hable, Olaf Jäger, Jürgen Kappert, Andreas Kleeberg, Oliver Niehuis, Frauke Nielsen, Anastasia Paupe, Hans-Georg Rudzinski, Aurélian Salle, Jürgen Schmidl, Kai Schütte, Matthias Schwabe, Christian Wagner and the Entomological Society of Krefeld. We are also grateful to Jana Thormann and Laura von der Mark (both
Results of species delimitation analysis
Data type: pdf
Explanation note: fig. S1. Results of species delimitation analysis (ASAP, BINs and morphology) plotted on the COI genetic distance tree.
Metadata of all specimens used in this study including locality details and BOLD and GenBank references
Data type: xlsx
Explanation note: The table includes all metadata of the specimens used in the study. The locality data are given in detail with all information including locality description, date, method and collector. For those specimens with barcode the BOLD-ID and GenBank accession numbers ar given..