Systematics, Phylogeography, and Taxonomy of a Cosmopolitan Family of Morphologically Conserved Trapdoor Spiders (Halonoproctidae); Revisionary Work a Century in the Making

Résumé du livre

The mygalomorph family Ctenizidae has a world-wide distribution and, at the outset of my dissertation, contained nine genera and 135 species. However, the monophyly of this group has long been questioned on both morphological and molecular grounds. In the first chapter of my dissertation, we use Anchored Hybrid Enrichment (AHE) to gather hundreds of loci from across the genome for reconstructing the phylogenetic relationships among the nine genera and test the monophyly of the family. We also reconstruct the possible ancestral ranges of the most inclusive clade recovered. Using AHE, we generate a supermatrix of 565 loci and 115,209 bp for 27 individuals. For the first time, analyses using all nine genera produce results definitively establishing the non-monophyly of Ctenizidae. The genera Bothriocyrtum, Conothele, Cyclocosmia, Hebestatis, Latouchia, and Ummidia are formally elevated to the level of family. Our results definitively establish both the non-monophyly of the Ctenizidae and nonvalidity of the subfamilies Ummidiinae and Ctenizinae. We formally describe the family Halonoproctidae Pocock 1901 and infer that the family's most recent common ancestor was likely distributed in western North America and Asia. The second chapter is a comprehensive taxonomic treatment of the New World Ummidia species. At the onset of this work the genus comprised 27 species and one subspecies with a cosmopolitan distribution that includes North America, South America, Asia, Northern Africa, and Europe; of these species the majority of the nominal diversity can be attributed to the New World where 20 species have been previously described. We consider U. oaxacana (Chamberlin 1925) to be a nomen dubium; U. tuobita (Chamberlin 1917) and U. absoluta (Gertsch and Mulaik 1940) are both considered junior synonyms of U. audouini (Lucas 1835); the subspecies U. carabivora emarginata (Atkinson 1886) is considered a junior synonym of U. carabivora (Atkinson 1886); U. pygmaea (Chamberlin and Ivie 1945) is considered a junior synonym of U. beatula(Gertsch and Mulaik 1940); U. celsus (Gertsch and Mulaik 1940) is considered a junior synonym of U. funerea (Gertsch 1936); Hebestatis lanthanus (Valerio 1987) is considered a junior synonym of U rugosa (Karsch 1880). Thirty three new species are described: U. neilgaimani, U. gingoteague, U. rongodwini, U. okefenokee, U. richmond, U. macarthuri, U. colemanae, U. rosillos, U. mercedesburnsae, U. paulacushingae, U. waunekaae, U. gertschi, U. timcotai, U. gabrieli, U. pesiou, U. rodeo, U. huascazaloya, U. anaya, U. cuicatec, U. brandicarlileae, U. riverai, U. frankellerae, U. hondurena, U. yojoa, U. metagalpa, U. carlosviquezi, U. varablanca, U. quepoa, U. cerrohoya, U. quijichacaca, U. tibacuy, U. neblina, U. tunapuna.