CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Aeglidae family is the only anomuran that live in freshwater environments of southern South America. The taxon is composed near 70 species and is not taxonomically resolved. The high endemism and diverse habitat colonized make that the Aeglidae species very particular taxa to study evolution. We analyzed mtDNA, COI-5P sequences (iBol Project) of seven species (Aegla scamosa, A. affinis, A. neuquensis, A. riolimayana, A. singularis, A. platensis, and A. uruguayana) that present inconsistencies in their morphological taxonomic characters. A Maximum Likelihood (ML) tree was performed by the software PHYLIP (v.3.69) and the consensus tree (by majority rule extended) was obtained. Four species appear as monophyletic. However, A. neuquensis, A. singularis, and A. platensis show inconsistencies also observed in morphological studies. Most of the relationships among populations of each species were mainly correlated to their geographic distribution, and were not easily explained. Some populations were in doubt because their morphology and distribution could be considered new species or populations in process of speciation. La Blanca Lagoon specimens (A. affinis), a site isolated from the other hydrological habitats, appears as an out-group of the other A. affinis populations. Specimens of A. neuquensis have intermediate characters with A. riolimayana, and come out as an out-group of sympatric specimens of Epulaquen Lagoons. Specimens of A. singularis from Uruguay River were clustered with specimens of A. platensis rather than populations of the same species but separated by a geographic barrier. A. uruguayana cluster, previously hypothesized as an ancestral population, come into view as the most recently. The biogeopgraphic patterns were similar as we had observed by geometric morphometrics analysis. These results shows Aeglids as an excellent model for study evolution due to the family particularities and the geo-climatic events occurs in the South America.