The Dalbergioid Legumes (Fabaceae): Delimitation of a Pantropical Monophyletic Clade
Species delimitation and phylogeny in the genus Nasutitermes (Termitidae: Nasutitermitinae) in...
-
Upload
independent -
Category
Documents
-
view
0 -
download
0
Transcript of Species delimitation and phylogeny in the genus Nasutitermes (Termitidae: Nasutitermitinae) in...
Species delimitation and phylogeny in the genusNasutitermes (Termitidae: Nasutitermitinae) in FrenchGuiana
VIRGINIE ROY,* REGINALDO CONSTANTINO,† VINCENT CHASSANY,*1 STEPHANIE
GIUSTI-MILLER,* MICHEL DIOUF,* PHILIPPE MORA* and MYRIAM HARRY‡§*UMR 7618 Bioemco-Ibios, Universit�e Paris-Est Cr�eteil, 61 avenue du G�en�eral de Gaulle, 94010, Cr�eteil Cedex, France,
†Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Bras�ılia, 70910-970 Bras�ılia, DF, Brasil, ‡Laboratoire Evolution, G�enomes et
Sp�eciation, UPR 9034 CNRS, IRD, Universit�e Paris Sud-11, avenue de la Terrasse, Batiment 13, 91198 Gif sur Yvette, France,
§UFR de Sciences, Universit�e Paris Sud-11, 91400 Orsay, France
Abstract
Species delimitation and identification can be arduous for taxa whose morphologic
characters are easily confused, which can hamper global biodiversity assessments and
pest species management. Exploratory methods of species delimitation that use DNA
sequence as their primary information source to establish group membership and esti-
mate putative species boundaries are useful approaches, complementary to traditional
taxonomy. Termites of the genus Nasutitermes make interesting models for the appli-
cation of such methods. They are dominant in Neotropical primary forests but also
represent major agricultural and structural pests. Despite the prevalence, pivotal eco-
logical role and economical impact of this group, the taxonomy of Nasutitermes species
mainly depends on unreliable characters of soldier external morphology. Here, we gen-
erated robust species hypotheses for 79 Nasutitermes colonies sampled throughout
French Guiana without any a priori knowledge of species affiliation. Sequence analy-
sis of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase II gene was coupled with exploratory spe-
cies-delimitation tools, using the automatic barcode gap discovery method (ABGD)
and a generalized mixed Yule-coalescent model (GMYC) to propose primary species
hypotheses (PSHs). PSHs were revaluated using phylogenetic analyses of two more
loci (mitochondrial 16S rDNA and nuclear internal transcribed spacer 2) leading to 16
retained secondary species hypotheses (RSSH). Seven RSSHs, represented by 44/79 of
the sampled colonies, were morphologically affiliated to species recognized as pests in
the Neotropics, where they represent a real invasive pest potential in the context of
growing ecosystem anthropization. Multigenic phylogenies based on combined align-
ments (1426–1784 bp) were also reconstructed to identify ancestral ecological niches
and major-pest lineages, revealing that Guyanese pest species do not form monophy-
letic groups.
Keywords: 16S rDNA, automatic barcode gap discovery method, cytochrome oxidase II, general
mixed Yule-coalescent, internal transcribed spacer 2, Nasutitermes
Received 15 January 2013; revision received 5 December 2013; accepted 13 December 2013
Introduction
Diverse and taxonomically understudied taxa are par-
ticularly challenging in terms of species delimitation
and identification (Puillandre et al. 2012b). This taxo-
nomic hurdle represents a real constraint to biodiversity
Correspondence: Virginie Roy, Fax: +33145171505;
E-mail: [email protected] address: Universit�e Paris Diderot, 4 rue Lagroua
Weill-Hall�e, 75205 Paris cedex 13, France
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Molecular Ecology (2014) 23, 902–920 doi: 10.1111/mec.12641
assessment (Deca€ens et al. 2013) and can impede pest
management. In this domain, molecular data can be
useful and complementary to traditional expertise in
several ways. For example, they can help to rapidly
identify referenced pest species, to delimit genetic units
within large-scale collections of samples for subsequent
morphological identification and to identify phyloge-
netic relationships between potential sibling pests.
For the bulk of undescribed biodiversity, the single-
gene DNA barcoding approach may be used, not to
identify specimens, but to propose primary species
hypotheses (PSHs) for approximating species descrip-
tions (Goldstein & DeSalle 2011; Puillandre et al. 2012b).
Methods of species delimitation use DNA sequence
itself as the primary information source to establish
group membership and estimate putative species
boundaries. There are only two formalized methods,
referred to as exploratory methods, specifically
designed to delimit species from single-locus data with-
out taking into account any kind of a priori species or
population delimitation (Coissac et al. 2012): the auto-
matic barcode gap discovery (ABGD) (Puillandre et al.
2012a) and general mixed Yule coalescent (GMYC)
(Pons et al. 2006; Monaghan et al. 2009) procedures.
The use of barcodes and single-gene approaches to
species delimitation (especially those based on mtDNA)
has been a source of controversy (Hebert et al. 2003;
Moritz & Cicero 2004; Blaxter et al. 2005; Rubinoff &
Holland 2005), and some major pitfalls linked to the
use of a sole mitochondrial gene should be mentioned.
First, DNA barcoding can overestimate the number of
species when nuclear mitochondrial pseudogenes (num-
ts) are coamplified (Song et al. 2008). Second, introgres-
sion events and/or incomplete lineage sorting can
commonly affect mtDNA-based phylogenetic analyses,
resulting in paraphyletic and polyphyletic relationships
(Funk & Omland 2003). Finally, maternally inherited
endosymbionts, such as the proteobacteriae Wolbachia,
may cause linkage disequilibrium with mtDNA, result-
ing in a homogenization of mtDNA haplotypes (Hurst
& Jiggins 2005). One strategy that has been used to
avoid single-gene pitfalls is to increase the gene sam-
pling to two or more, preferably unlinked, genes
(Knowles 2009; Leach�e & Fujita 2010; O’Meara 2010;
Yang & Rannala 2010). Comparison of different sources
of data has been thus suggested as the most effective
way to understand the evolutionary history of a group
(Rubinoff & Holland 2005).
Among insects, termites (Blattodea: Termitoidae) rep-
resent interesting models for exploratory species-delimi-
tation methods for a number of reasons. In tropical and
subtropical ecosystems, termites are particularly abun-
dant, frequently exceeding 1000 individuals/m2 or
2000 mg/m2 (Engel et al. 2009). They play a major role
in the decomposition of organic matter, nutrient recy-
cling, aeration and drainage of soils (Garnier-Sillam &
Harry 1995; Lavelle et al. 1997) and are particularly sen-
sitive to ecosystem perturbations (Fonseca de Souza &
Brown 1994; Dupont et al. 2008). Additionally, about
10% of species are xylophagous or foraging species,
which are described as pests for constructions or cul-
tures. Until recently, species delimitation in termites
was essentially based on three types of character, which
were rarely used together: morphological observations,
analytical chemistry (chemotaxonomy) and molecular
phylogeny. Then, recently, Monaghan et al. (2009)
applied an exploratory method (GMYC) to delimitate
termite species from Madagascar. Their results indi-
cated that the GMYC model captures species bound-
aries that are comparable to those from traditional
methods, opening a new avenue for the exploration of
termite biodiversity.
The genus Nasutitermes Dudley, 1890 (Termitidae:
Nasutitermitinae) comprises 243 currently described
species, including approximately 71 Neotropical species
in which the soldier caste possesses a frontal projection
(nasus) and vestigial mandibles. Most species build
arboreal nests and are wood-feeders. They occur in a
variety of habitats, including primary and secondary
forests, cropland and urban areas. Some Nasutitermes
species play a major role in soil ecological processes,
consuming up to 3% of the annual production of wood
litter in Brazilian forests (Vasconcellos & Moura 2010).
However, several species of Nasutitermes are important
pests in South America (Constantino 2002), causing sig-
nificant damage in agriculture (e.g. on coffee, maize,
cotton, eucalyptus, fruit trees, rice and sugar cane) and
to wood and other cellulosic materials. For example,
Nasutitermes nigriceps, N. ephratae and N. surinamensis
are well known to ravage timber wood, and N. corniger
is a major urban pest in Brazil and Argentina (Constan-
tino 2002). In French Guiana, three pest species of tim-
ber wood, N. nigriceps, N. ephratae and N. surinamensis,
have been reported among the twenty species of Nasut-
itermes recorded from this region (Lefeuve 1990;
Constantino 2002; Ensaf et al. 2003; Ensaf & Eggleton
2004; Ensaf 2010).
As in many other termite genera, the taxonomy of the
genus Nasutitermes is extremely confused, making spe-
cies identification remains difficult. Specific identifica-
tion of soldiers within the genus Nasutitermes usually
depends upon differences in pilosity, shape of the head,
colour and size (Holmgren 1910; Emerson 1925). Few
studies have used information other than that on mor-
phology to address taxonomic or phylogenetic problems
in the genus Nasutitermes. Nevertheless, the use of cutic-
ular hydrocarbons made it possible to differentiate
very similar species such as Nasutitermes acajutlae and
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
SPECIES DELIMITATION IN NASUTITERMES SPECIES 903
N. nigriceps (Thorne et al. 1994) or N. corniger and
N. ephratae (Howard et al. 1988), and mitochondrial
markers have successfully demonstrated the synonymy
of N. corniger, N. costalis and N. polygynus (Scheffrahn
et al. 2005a,b). Finally, phylogenetic relationships
between Nasutitermes species are poorly known, and
molecular studies have rarely focused on Neotropical
species (but see Bergamaschi et al. 2007 and Miura et al.
2000 for Nasutitermes phylogenies from Australia and
the Pacific tropics, respectively).
The aims of the present study were to generate robust
species hypotheses for 79 Nasutitermes colonies sampled
throughout French Guiana, without a priori knowledge
of species affiliation, thus comparing ABGD and GMYC
results in termites for the first time, and to reconstruct
phylogenies for Guianese species in order to retrace the
history of Nasutitermes ecological niche evolution and
pest species emergence.
Materials and methods
Samples
Nasute samples were represented by 79 colonies and
collected from 16 sites in French Guiana referred as
Awala-Yalimapo (AWA), Bellevue (BEL), Cacao (CAC),
Counami (COU), Elah�e (ELA), Iles du Salut (IDS), Ilet la
M�ere (ILM), Marais de Yiyi (MDY), Maripasoula
(MAR), Matoury (MAT), Montjoly (MON), Nouragues
(NOU), Patagai (PAT), Rocoucoua (ROC), Route de St
Elie (RSE) and Sa€ul (SAU) (Table 1 and Fig. S1, Sup-
porting information). The sampling procedure for BEL,
CAC, PAT and ROC was detailed in Dupont et al. (2008).
Other sites were sampled quantitatively (1–2 days
per site). Samples were conserved in absolute etha-
nol until molecular analyses. Sample affiliation to the
Nasutitermes genus was checked using the soldier
description of Mathews (1977). Two colonies belonging
to Syntermitinae genera (Cyrilliotermes and Silvestriter-
mes) were chosen as outgroups for phylogenetic recon-
structions.
DNA extraction, sequencing and alignments
Total genomic DNA was extracted from one soldier per
colony (N = 79) by dissecting the head, thorax and legs,
and removing the abdomen. DNA extraction was real-
ized using the DNeasy Blood & Tissue Kit (Qiagen,
France) according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
The mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase II (COII) gene
was sequenced and applied to a species-delimitation
procedure. One additional mitochondrial gene, 16S
rDNA, and one nuclear sequence, internal transcribed
spacer 2 (ITS2), were sequenced to consolidate the
species-delimitation procedure and to concatenate loci
in phylogenetic analyses.
PCR amplifications were performed in 40 lL mixture
using Taq PCR Master Mix Kit (Qiagen) and GoTaq�
Flexi DNA Polymerase (Promega, France) following the
manufacturer protocol. The PCR primers and amplifica-
tion protocols are listed in Table S1 (Supporting infor-
mation). Amplification products were sent to Beckman
Coulter UK Ltd for sequencing. The sequences gener-
ated for this study were submitted to GenBank, and the
accession numbers are provided in Table 1.
The standard barcode gene, cytochrome oxidase I
(COI), was also tested for amplification and sequencing,
but returned only very partial results. It failed to
amplify or gave unusable sequences for numerous sam-
ples despite various modifications in the protocol,
including the use of Phusion High-Fidelity DNA Poly-
merase (NEB, France) and nested PCRs. Furthermore,
some COI sequences showed protein sequences that
were highly divergent and two stop codons in the read-
ing frame that could be attributed to parts of the mito-
chondrial genome that were transferred to the nucleus
(nuclear mitochondrial sequences or NUMTs). Conse-
quently, COI was not retained for further analyses.
For ten samples sequenced for ITS2 nuclear marker,
electropherograms showed convoluted DNA trace pro-
duced by direct sequencing of a template containing
heterozygous insertions/deletions. For these samples,
phase determination in length variant heterozygotes
was performed by direct sequencing of mixed PCR
products by combining for each individual the com-
plementary information contained in its forward and
reverse chromatograms (Flot et al., 2006) with the help
of Champuru v1.0 (Flot 2007, available online at
http://www.mnhn.fr/jfflot/champuru/). For all other
samples, heterozygous positions were identified by a
secondary peak in the electropherograms that reached
at least 50% of the intensity of the primary peak,
using CodonCode Aligner (CodonCode Corporation).
The low-sensitivity option was used when searching
for mutations to reduce false positives. Heterozygous
sites were coded using the standard IUPAC codes for
combinations of bases, and for all samples where two
or more heterozygous sites were found in a sequence,
we determined the gametic phase of alleles using the
program PHASE 2.1 as implemented in DNASP v.5
(Librado & Rozas 2009). PHASE uses a Bayesian
approach to infer haplotypes from diploid genotypic
data accounting for both recombination and linkage
disequilibrium.
An initial alignment for individual loci was produced
with the ClustalW2 algorithm (Thompson et al. 1994).
Manual adjustments and concatenation were made
using SEAVIEW v4.3.0 (Gouy et al. 2010).
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
904 V. ROY ET AL.
Table
1Sam
ple
labels,
collectionlocalities,collectors,ecological
niches
andPSHsproposedforthe79
GuianeseNasutiterm
essamplesusedin
thesp
ecies-delim
itationan
alysis
Sam
ple
Collectionlocality
(collectors)
Ecological
niche
PSH
COIIGen
Ban
kID
(COIIhap
lotype)
16SGen
Ban
kID
ITS2
Gen
Ban
kID
AW
A1
Awala-Yalim
apo(V
C)
F1
KC63
0989
(hap
lotype1.1)
KF72
4731
(hap
lotype1.1)
KF72
4765
BEL2
Bellevue(V
R,MH)
C1
KC63
0989
(hap
lotype1.1)
KF72
4732
(hap
lotype1.2)
KF72
4766
CAC2
Cacao
(VR,MH)
F1
KC63
0989
(hap
lotype1.1)
MD
MD
ILM1
Ilet
laM� ere(V
C)
F1
KC63
0989
(hap
lotype1.1)
KF72
4733
(hap
lotype1.3)
KF72
4767
MAT1(10)
Matoury
(VC)
F1
KC63
0989
(hap
lotype1.1)
KF72
4731
(hap
lotype1.1)
KF72
4768
MON1
Montjoly
(VR,MH)
F1
KC630989
(hap
lotype1.1)
KF724734
(hap
lotype1.4)
KF724769
COU1
Counam
i(V
R,MH)
F1
KC63
0990
(hap
lotype1.2)
MD
MD
ELA2
Elah� e(V
R,MH)
C1
KC63
0991
(hap
lotype1.3)
MD
KF72
4770
BEL3
Bellevue(V
R,MH)
S2a
KC63
0992
(hap
lotype2a
.1)
KF72
4735
(hap
lotype2a
.1)
KF72
4771
RSE3
Route
StElie(V
R,MH)
S2a
KC63
0993
(hap
lotype2a
.2)
MD
KF72
4772
RSE2
Route
StElie(V
R,MH)
S2a
KC63
0993
(hap
lotype2a
.2)
KF72
4736
(hap
lotype2a
.2)
KF72
4773
MDY1(10)
MaraisdeYiyi(V
C)
S2b
KC63
0994
(hap
lotype2b
.1)
KF72
4737
(hap
lotype2b
.1)
KF72
4774
BEL4
Bellevue(V
R,MH)
F3
KC63
0995
(hap
lotype3.1)
MD
KF72
4775
ROC1
Rocoucoua(V
R,MH)
F3
KC63
0995
(hap
lotype3.1)
KF72
4738
(hap
lotype3.1)
KF72
4776
NIS2
F.GuianaNI(V
R,MH)
MD
3KC63
0996
(hap
lotype3.2)
KF72
4739
(hap
lotype3.2)
KF72
4777
NIS1
F.GuianaNI(V
R,MH)
MD
3KC63
0996
(hap
lotype3.2)
MD
KF72
4778
NOU1
Nouragues
(VC)
F3
KC63
0996
(hap
lotype3.2)
KF72
4740
(hap
lotype3.3)
KF72
4779
NOU2(10)
Nouragues
(VC)
F3
KC63
0996
(hap
lotype3.2)
KF72
4739
(hap
lotype3.2)
KF72
4780
NOU3
Nouragues
(VC)
F3
KC63
0996
(hap
lotype3.2)
KF72
4739
(hap
lotype3.2)
KF72
4781
PAT2
Patag
a€ ı(V
R,MH)
F3
KC63
0997
(hap
lotype3.3)
KF72
4741
(hap
lotype3.4)
KF72
4782
PAT3
Patag
a€ ı(V
R,MH)
F3
KC63
0998
(hap
lotype3.4)
KF72
4739
(hap
lotype3.2)
KF72
4783
PAT4
Patag
a€ ı(V
R,MH)
F3
KC63
0999
(hap
lotype3.5)
KF72
4738
(hap
lotype3.1)
KF72
4784
RSE1
Route
StElie(V
C)
F3
KC63
1000
(hap
lotype3.6)
KF72
4739
(hap
lotype3.2)
KF72
4785
NOU25(10)
Nouragues
(PM)
F4
KC63
1001
(hap
lotype4.1)
KF72
4742
(hap
lotype4.1)
KF72
4786
BEL1(10)
Bellevue(V
R,MH)
S5
KC63
1002
(hap
lotype5.1)
KF72
4743
(hap
lotype5.1)
KF72
4787
BEL5
Bellevue(V
R,MH)
C6
KC63
1003
(hap
lotype6.1)
MD
MD
ELA3
Elah� e(V
R,MH)
F6
KC63
1003
(hap
lotype6.1)
KF72
4744
(hap
lotype6.1)
KF72
4788
CAC3
Cacao
(VR,MH)
F6
KC63
1004
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4745
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4789
MAT2(10)
Matoury
(VC)
F6
KC63
1004
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4745
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4790
NOU26
Nouragues
(PM)
F6
KC63
1004
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4745
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4791
NOU4
Nouragues
(VC)
F6
KC63
1004
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4745
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4792
NOU5
Nouragues
(VC)
F6
KC63
1004
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4746
(hap
lotype6.3)
KF72
4793
PAT5
Patag
a€ ı(V
R,MH)
F6
KC63
1004
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4747
(hap
lotype6.4)
KF72
4794
PAT6
Patag
a€ ı(V
R,MH)
F6
KC63
1004
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4747
(hap
lotype6.4)
KF72
4795
SAU1
Sa€ ul(V
C)
F6
KC63
1004
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4745
(hap
lotype6.2)
KF72
4796
NOU6(10)
Nouragues
(VC)
F7
KC63
1005
(hap
lotype7.1)
KF72
4748
(hap
lotype7.1)
KF72
4797
NOU28
Nouragues
(PM)
F8
KC63
1006
(hap
lotype8.1)
KF72
4749
(hap
lotype8.1)
KF72
4798
NOU17
Nouragues
(VC)
F8
KC63
1006
(hap
lotype8.1)
KF72
4749
(hap
lotype8.1)
KF72
4799
NOU16
Nouragues
(VC)
F8
KC63
1006
(hap
lotype8.1)
KF72
4750
(hap
lotype8.2)
KF72
4800
NOU15(10)
Nouragues
(VC)
F8
KC63
1006
(hap
lotype8.1)
KF72
4749
(hap
lotype8.1)
KF72
4801
PAT7
Patag
a€ ı(V
R,MH)
F8
KC63
1006
(hap
lotype8.1)
MD
KF72
4802
NOU20
Nouragues
(VC)
F8
KC63
1007
(hap
lotype8.2)
KF72
4751
(hap
lotype8.3)
KF72
4803
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
SPECIES DELIMITATION IN NASUTITERMES SPECIES 905
Tab
le1
Continued
Sam
ple
Collectionlocality
(collectors)
Ecological
niche
PSH
COII
Gen
Ban
kID
(COIIhap
lotype)
16SGen
Ban
kID
ITS2
Gen
Ban
kID
NOU18
Nouragues
(VC)
F8
KC63
1007
(hap
lotype8.2)
KF72
4752
(hap
lotype8.4)
KF72
4804
NOU19
Nouragues
(VC)
F8
KC63
1007
(hap
lotype8.2)
KF72
4753
(hap
lotype8.5)
KF72
4805
NOU8
Nouragues
(VC)
F9
KC63
1008
(hap
lotype9.1)
KF72
4754
(hap
lotype9.1)
KF72
4806
NOU7(10)
Nouragues
(VC)
F9
KC63
1008
(hap
lotype9.1)
KF72
4754
(hap
lotype9.1)
KF72
4807
NOU9
Nouragues
(VC)
F9
KC63
1008
(hap
lotype9.1)
KF72
4754
(hap
lotype9.1)
KF72
4808
PAT8(2)
Patag
a€ ı(V
R,MH)
F10
KC63
1009
(hap
lotype10
.1)
KF72
4755
(hap
lotype10
.1)
KF72
4809
COU3(10)
Counam
i(V
R,MH)
F11
KC63
1010
(hap
lotype11
.1)
KF72
4756
(hap
lotype11
.1)
KF72
4810
NIS4
F.GuianaNI(V
R,MH)
MD
11KC63
1011
(hap
lotype11
.2)
MD
KF72
4811
NOU27
Nouragues
(PM)
F12
KC63
1012
(hap
lotype12
.1)
KF72
4757
(hap
lotype12
.1)
KF72
4812
NOU10
Nouragues
(VC)
F12
KC63
1012
(hap
lotype12
.1)
KF72
4757
(hap
lotype12
.1)
KF72
4813
NOU11
Nouragues
(VC)
F12
KC63
1012
(hap
lotype12
.1)
KF72
4757
(hap
lotype12
.1)
KF72
4814
NOU12
Nouragues
(VC)
F12
KC63
1012
(hap
lotype12
.1)
KF72
4757
(hap
lotype12
.1)
KF72
4815
NOU13(10)
Nouragues
(VC)
F12
KC63
1012
(hap
lotype12
.1)
KF72
4757
(hap
lotype12
.1)
KF72
4816
NOU14
Nouragues
(VC)
F12
KC63
1013
(hap
lotype12
.2)
KF72
4757
(hap
lotype12
.1)
KF72
4817
AWA2
Awala-Yalim
apo(V
C)
F13
KC63
1014
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4758
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4818
CAC4
Cacao
(VR,MH)
F13
KC63
1014
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4758
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4819
COU2
Counam
i(V
R,MH)
F13
KC63
1014
(hap
lotype13
.1)
MD
KF72
4820
NIS3
F.GuianaNI(V
R,MH)
MD
13KC63
1014
(hap
lotype13
.1)
MD
KF72
4821
IDS3
Iles
duSalut(V
C)
F13
KC63
1014
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4758
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4822
ILM2
Ilet
laM� ere(V
C)
F13
KC63
1014
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4758
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4823
ILM3
Ilet
laM� ere(V
C)
F13
KC63
1014
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4758
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4824
NOU21
Nouragues
(VC)
F13
KC63
1014
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4758
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4825
NOU22(10)
Nouragues
(VC)
F13
KC63
1014
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4758
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4826
NOU23
Nouragues
(VC)
F13
KC63
1014
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4758
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4827
NOU24
Nouragues
(VC)
F13
KC63
1014
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4758
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4828
ROC2
Rocoucoua(V
R,MH)
C13
KC63
1014
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4758
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4829
MAT3
Matoury
(VC)
F13
KC631015
(hap
lotype13.2)
KF724758
(hap
lotype13.1)
KF724830
SAU2
Sa€ ul(V
C)
F13
KC63
1016
(hap
lotype13
.3)
KF72
4758
(hap
lotype13
.1)
KF72
4831
ELA1
Elah� e(V
R,MH)
C14
KC63
1017
(hap
lotype14
.1)
KF72
4759
(hap
lotype14
.1)
KF72
4832
MAR1(10)
Maripasoula
(VR,MH)
C14
KC63
1017
(hap
lotype14
.1)
KF72
4759
(hap
lotype14
.1)
KF72
4833
PAT1
Patag
a€ ı(V
R,MH)
F14
KC63
1018
(hap
lotype14
.2)
MD
MD
CAC1(10)
Cacao
(VR,MH)
F15
KC63
1019
(hap
lotype15
.1)
KF72
4760
(hap
lotype15
.1)
KF72
4834
IDS4
Iles
duSalut(V
R,MH)
F15
KC63
1020
(hap
lotype15
.2)
MD
KF72
4835
IDS5
Iles
duSalut(V
R,MH)
F15
KC63
1020
(hap
lotype15
.2)
MD
KF72
4836
IDS6
Iles
duSalut(V
R,MH)
F15
KC63
1021
(hap
lotype15
.3)
MD
KF72
4837
IDS1
Iles
duSalut(V
C)
F15
KC63
1022
(hap
lotype15
.4)
KF72
4761
(hap
lotype15
.2)
KF72
4838
IDS2
Iles
duSalut(V
C)
F15
KC63
1022
(hap
lotype15
.4)
KF72
4762
(hap
lotype15
.3)
KF72
4839
Silvestriterm
essp
.Nouragues
(PM)
——
KC63
1023
KF72
4763
KF72
4840
Cyrilliotermes
sp.
Rocoucoua(V
R,MH)
——
KC63
1024
KF72
4764
KF72
4841
VC,V.Chassany;MH,M.Harry;PM,P.Mora;VR,V.Roy;F,forest;S,savan
nah
;C,cu
lture;NI,noniden
tified
site;MD,missingdata;
PSH,primarysp
ecieshypotheses.
Sam
plesin
bold
arethose
usedformorphological
speciesaffiliation,withnumbersofindividualsusedformorphological
analysesin
brackets.
Gen
Ban
kaccessionnumbers(A
N)
areindicated
forCOIIhap
lotypes,16SrD
NA
andITS2sequen
ces.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
906 V. ROY ET AL.
Species-delimitation procedure
Principle. A workflow diagram is presented as Fig. 1.
First, PSHs were constructed based on the pattern of
diversity of COII as a single gene. COII is not the stan-
dard barcode gene, but it was demonstrated to be suit-
able for a single-locus species-delimitation procedure
(Monaghan et al. 2009). Historically, COII has been pref-
erentially sequenced in termites, and about five times
more sequences are available for it in nucleotide databas-
es than for COI. PSHs were proposed using two explor-
atory methods for species delimitation: ABGD and
GMYC procedures applied to the COII gene. To consoli-
date PSHs, additional sequences, that is, mitochondrial
16S rDNA and nuclear ITS2 were phylogenetically analy-
sed (i.e. monophyly, with support and shared haplotypes
between PSHs set as criteria). This step made it possible
to choose the most likely option amongst alternate PSHs
proposed by ABGD and GMYC and to propose RSSHs
(Puillandre et al. 2012b). Finally, RSSHs were affiliated to
known species through to the detailed morphological
expertise of individuals belonging to the soldier caste.
ABGD method. The ABGD method (Puillandre et al.
2012a) uses several a priori thresholds to propose parti-
tioning of specimens into PSHs based on the distribu-
tion of pairwise genetic distances. In the distribution of
pairwise differences between sequences, one can
observe a gap between intraspecific diversity and
interspecific diversity; this gap has been named the
‘barcode gap’ and can be used as a threshold for delim-
iting primary species under the assumption that indi-
viduals within species are more similar than between
species. The COII alignment was used to compute
matrices of pairwise distances using the p-distance, the
Kimura 2-parameter (K2P) and the Tamura–Nei (TN)
models with MEGA5 (Tamura et al. 2011). Matrices
were then used as inputs on the ABGD webpage
(http://wwwabi.snv.jussieu.fr/public/abgd/abgdweb.
html), using the default settings search (except for the
relative gap width X which was set to 1 because only
one group was found for the default value X = 1.5,
prior maximal distance of 0.001) on a set of prior mini-
mum genetic distances ranging from 0.001 to 0.1.
GMYC procedure. The general mixed Yule-coalescent
delimitation procedure is based on a coalescent
approach and requires a chronometric phylogram in
which branch lengths are approximately proportional to
time. We applied the uncorrelated lognormal model
implemented in BEAST v1.7.3 (Drummond et al. 2012) to
the COII alignment. Three independent Markov chain
Monte Carlo (MCMC) analyses were run for 20 million
generations, sampling every 1000 with a 10% burn-in
under the substitution model determined using MRMOD-
ELTEST (GTR + G + I). Convergence and effective sample
size (ESS) of estimated parameters were inspected using
TRACER v1.5, and a maximum clade credibility tree was
reconstructed with the program TREEANNOTATOR v1.7.3
COII (N = 79)
COII (N = 79)
DELIMITATION
PSHs
CONSOLIDATION
Morphologicalidentification
Morphologicalidentification
Morphology
AFFILIATION
Species
ABGD, GMYC
RSSHsITS2
(N = 64)ITS2
(N = 64)
BI, ML (monophyly + support)/shared haplotypes
16S (N = 64)
16S (N = 64)
ITS2 (N = 75)
ITS2 (N = 75)
16S(N = 64)
16S(N = 64)
COII (N = 64)
COII (N = 64)
Haplo-network
RECONSTRUCTION OF ANCESTRAL ECOLOGICAL NICHES
PHYLOGENETIC RECONSTRUCTIONS
BI on total combined datasetBI on mit combined dataset
(a) (b)
Fig. 1 Workflow diagram for species delimitation, phylogeny and reconstruction of ancestral states. (a) Delimitation analyses: PSHs
were proposed using two methods for species delimitation (ABGD and GMYC procedures, applied to the COII data set). Phyloge-
netic analyses of COII, 16S rDNA and ITS2 data sets were used to choose the most likely option amongst alternate PSHs proposed
by ABGD and GMYC. RSSHs were then affiliated to known species by detailed morphological identification of individuals belonging
to the soldier caste. (b) Combined phylogenetic analyses: COII, 16S rDNA and ITS2 data sets were combined to reconstruct phyloge-
nies and ancestral ecological niches. COII: cytochrome oxidase II, ITS2: internal transcribed spacers 2, ABGD: automatic barcode gap
discovery method, GMYC: generalized mixed Yule-coalescent method, PSHs: primary species hypotheses, RSSHs: retained secondary
species hypotheses, BI: Bayesian inference, ML: maximum likelihood, N: number of colonies sequenced/locus.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
SPECIES DELIMITATION IN NASUTITERMES SPECIES 907
with the default settings. The ultrametric phylogenies
recovered with BEAST were then subjected to GMYC
analysis.
The GMYC model was used to perform analyses of
species delimitation and propose PSHs (Pons et al.
2006). This method exploits the differences in the rate
of lineage branching at the level of species and popula-
tions that can be visualized as a switch between slow
and fast rates of branching events in a lineage-through-
time plot. A combined model that separately describes
population (a neutral coalescent model) and speciation
(a Yule model) processes is fitted on the ultrametric
tree. The method optimizes a threshold position of
switching from interspecific to intraspecific events such
that nodes older than the threshold are considered to
be diversification events and nodes younger than the
threshold reflect coalescence occurring within each spe-
cies. We generated a log-lineage-through-time plot to
identify a sharp increase in lineage accumulation that
represents the inferred threshold between speciation
and coalescent processes. A standard likelihood ratio
test (LRT) was used to assess whether the alternative
model (i.e. the simple-threshold GMYC model)
provided a better fit than the null model (i.e. a single
PSH). These methods were implemented in R software
v2.15.1 (R Development Core Team 2010), using the
splits (available at http://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/
splits/) and ape (Paradis et al. 2004) packages.
Consolidation of PSHs. As a first step, the monophyly
and support of PSHs were evaluated from Bayesian
inference (BI) and maximum likelihood (ML) based on
the COII, 16S rDNA and ITS2 data sets. The appropri-
ateness of partitioning the COII alignment by codon
position was determined using the Bayes factor (BF)
(Kass & Raftery 1995; Nylander 2004) on ‘gene nonpar-
titioned by codon’ and ‘gene partitioned by codon’
matrices. For this, we used the sump command in
MRBAYES to obtain the log-transformed harmonic means.
The BF can be calculated as the ratio of the harmonic
means of likelihoods of the two analyses being tested.
In this study, 2lnBF ≥ 10 was considered as very strong
evidence supporting the alternative hypothesis based
on hypothesized cut-off values (Kass & Raftery 1995).
For the ITS2 phylogenetic reconstructions, we used
sequences with IUPAC codes: all gaps and heterozy-
gous positions were coded as ambiguous characters
and were treated as missing data. The most appropriate
likelihood models were determined with MRMODELTEST
2.0 (Nylander 2004) using the Akaike information crite-
rion. Bayesian search was carried out with MRBAYES
v.3.1.2 (Huelsenbeck & Ronquist 2001) using four simul-
taneous Markov chains, 10 million generations and
sampling every 100 generations, resulting in 100 000
generations being saved. A burn-in of 20% was used.
We used TRACER v1.5 (Drummond et al. 2012) to ascer-
tain that our sampling of the posterior distribution had
an adequate ESS. ML analyses were performed using
PhyML (Guindon et al. 2010) with 1000 bootstraps.
As a second step, shared haplotypes between PSHs
were then identified using DNASP v.5 for COII and 16S
rDNA alignments. We explored relationships between
ITS2 haplotypes reconstructed by PHASE using a median
joining network obtained in NETWORK 4.6 (http://www.
fluxus-engineering.com) and identified shared ITS2
haplotypes.
Identification to species level. RSSHs were affiliated to
known species through to the detailed morphological
examination of individuals belonging to the soldier caste.
The 79 colonies could not all be analysed for reasons of
conservation and availability of the different castes. Fif-
teen colonies underwent a detailed morphological identi-
fication (Table 1): 142 individuals were examined using a
Leica M205C stereomicroscope under magnification up
to 1009, with both incident and transmitted light. Soldier
characters used for identification were shape of head
capsule; number, size and distribution of hairs on head
capsule, thoracic nota and tergites; gut morphology in
situ (observed by transparency); number of antennal arti-
cles and their relative length; colour and colour pattern;
and morphometric characters: length of head, width of
head and length of posterior tibia. These were then com-
pared with published descriptions (Holmgren 1910;
Banks 1918; Emerson 1925; Mathews 1977; Bandeira &
Fontes 1979) and with preserved specimens and images
of type specimens. The Appendix S1 (Supporting infor-
mation) presents more detailed information on the identi-
fication of each species.
Phylogenetic analyses
Phylogenetic analyses were performed with BI parti-
tioned by gene on mitochondrial combined (COII and
16s rDNA) and total combined alignments (COII, 16s
rDNA and ITS2). Samples with at least one missing
locus were discarded from the analyses, resulting in
data sets of 64 Nasutitermes and two outgroup samples.
The procedure for BI was identical to that described in
the ‘Consolidation of PSHs’ section.
Reconstruction of ancestral ecological niches
MESQUITE v. 2.75 (Maddison & Maddison 2011) was used
to reconstruct the ecological state of the ancestral nodes
(i.e. forest or savannah). The topology of the BI tree
obtained with the total combined alignment was used
as input in Mesquite. For each node, a likelihood
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
908 V. ROY ET AL.
reconstruction method was used to find the state that
maximized the probability of arriving at the observed
states in the terminal taxa, given the model of evolu-
tion, and allowing the states at all other nodes to vary.
Results
Delimitation of mtDNA clusters with ABGD andGMYC methods
Genetic pairwise distances for COII gene were computed
using three different substitution models: the p-distance,
the K2P distance and the TN distance. The distribution of
genetic distances, whatever the substitution model used,
displayed three modes (Fig. 2a). The different ABGD a
priori thresholds led to partitions with 20, 17, 16 or 14
PSHs when extreme a priori thresholds were excluded
(Fig. 2c), but a first major barcode gap was evident at a
priori genetic distance threshold of 0.0046 (estimated dis-
tance p = 0.010) (Fig. 2b). Thus, this prior intraspecific
divergence value, supporting the presence of 16 PSHs,
was favoured in further discussion about ABGD species
delimitation. Five PSHs contained a single sequence, with
these singletons representing 31% of delineated ABGD
species (PSHs 2b, 4, 5, 7 and 10, longer black branches in
Fig. 2d).
A lineage-through-time plot based on the BEAST ultra-
metric tree revealed a sudden increase in branching rate
towards the present, likely corresponding to the switch
from interspecies to intraspecies branching events
(Fig. 3). A LRT favoured the simple-threshold GMYC
model over a null model of a single PSH (likelihood of
null model: 625.1238, likelihood of GMYC model:
632.7517, likelihood ratio: 16.00316, LR test: <0.005). Themodel identified 15 distinct PSHs (confidence limits:
12–17). Four PSHs contained a single sequence, with
these singletons representing 27% of delineated GMYC
species (PSHs 4, 5, 7 and 10, longer black branches in
Fig. 3).
We calculated mean intra- and inter-PSHs levels of
sequence variation considering the less conservative
partition proposed by the delimitation methods (i.e. 16
PSHs). Mean intra-PSH (i.e. putative intraspecific) levels
of sequence variation were low, ranging from 0 to
0.003 � 0.001 (Table S2, Supporting information). Pair-
wise PSHs comparisons were investigated for all COII
sequences (Table S3, Supporting information): the low-
est distance, calculated with a K2P model, was between
PSH 2a and PSH 2b (p = 0.013 � 0.004). The highest
distance was between PSH 2a and PSH 14
(0.135 � 0.016). Mean inter-PSH (i.e. putative interspe-
cific) distance for the COII gene was 0.087 � 0.026.
PSH consolidation and species affiliation
The COII alignment consisted of 79 Nasutitermes
sequences of 705 bp with 186 polymorphic sites. No stop
codon was observed. The best-fit models selected by
MRMODELTEST were GTR+I+G (nonpartitioned), F81 (1st
codon position), GTR+G (2nd codon position) and GTR+I(3rd codon position). The 2lnBF was �149.28 (harmonic
mean partitioned, �ln = 3240.13; harmonic mean non-
partitioned –ln = 3165.49), suggesting that assuming a
single model of evolution for the whole COII had a better
fit to the data than allowing the three codon positions of
the COII gene to have independent parameter values.
When at least two sequences per PSH were available,
each PSH defined on the COII alignment using ABGD
and GMYC methods was monophyletic and supported
by ML bootstrap (BT) values >70 and BI Bayesian poster-
ior probability (BPP) values >0.95, except PSH3 (BI BPP
<0.95 and ML BT <70) and PSH6 (BI BPP <0.95) (Figs. 4aand 5). No haplotype was shared between PSHs.
The 16S rDNA alignment comprised 721 bp, with 64
Nasutitermes sequences showing 142 polymorphic sites,
and two outgroups. The best-fit model selected by
MRMODELTEST was GTR+I+G. All PSHs were monophy-
letic using the 16S rDNA alignment and supported by
ML bootstrap (BT) values >70 (Fig. 4b). In three cases
(PSHs 1, 2a and 2ab), BI BPP values were <0.95. The
two PSH 2a sequences differed by only one indel, while
PSH 2a and PSH 2b sequences differed by five to six
substitutions/indels. No 16S rDNA haplotype was
shared between PSH 2a and PSH 2b (Figs 4b and 5).
The ITS2 alignment included 75 Nasutitermes
sequences of 358 bp showing 37 polymorphic sites. The
best-fit model selected by MRMODELTEST was HKY+G.
Six PSHs were found to be monophyletic, and five of
them were supported by ML BT values >70 and BI
BPP >0.95. PSHs 2a, 2b, 2ab, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 11 showed
relationships between members that were unresolved
(Figs 4c and 5). Relationships between reconstructed
Fig. 2 (a) Frequency distribution of pairwise sequence comparisons based on the K2P, TN and p-distances for the COII alignment,
(b) frequency distribution for the barcode gap range of distances only, (c) automatic barcode gap discovery method (ABGD) auto-
matic partition of the COII alignment: number of groups inside the partitions is indicated as a function of the prior limit between
intra- and interspecies divergence, (d) Nasutitermes BIONJ tree obtained with ABGD with a priori genetic distance threshold of 0.0046
[16 primary species hypotheses (PSHs)]. ABGD genetic groups recognized as PSHs are highlighted in red and separated by longer
black branches.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
SPECIES DELIMITATION IN NASUTITERMES SPECIES 909
PSH 12
PSH 14
PSH 13
PSH 15
PSH 10
PSH 9
PSH 11
PSH 8
PSH 7
PSH 6
PSH 5PSH 4
PSH 3
PSH 2a
PSH 1
PSH 2b
BEL2ILM1MAT1AWA1MON1
ELA2COU1
CAC2RSE2
RSE3BEL3
MDY1PAT2
PAT4BEL4ROC1NOU1PAT3RSE1
NIS1NIS2NOU2NOU3
NOU25BEL1
CAC3BEL5
ELA3MAT2NOU26NOU4NOU5PAT5PAT6SAU1
NOU6NOU20NOU18NOU19NOU28NOU17NOU15NOU16PAT7
NOU7NOU8NOU9
PAT8COU3
NIS4NOU14
NOU13NOU12NOU27NOU10NOU11
SAU2NOU24NOU23NOU22NOU21
NIS3COU2
AWA2MAT3
CAC4ROC2ILM3ILM2IDS3
PAT1MAR1
ELA1IDS2IDS1
IDS6IDS4
IDS5CAC1
0.01
(d)
(c)
(b)
(a)
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
910 V. ROY ET AL.
–0.10 –0.08 –0.06 –0.04 –0.02 0.00
12
510
2050
Time
N
–0.10 –0.08 –0.06 –0.04 –0.02 0.00
624
626
628
630
632
Time
likel
ihoo
d
PSH 12
PSH 14
PSH 13
PSH 15
PSH 10
PSH 9
PSH 11
PSH 8
PSH 7
PSH 6
PSH 5PSH 4
PSH 3
PSH 2ab
PSH 1
ELA2MAT1
BEL2ILM1AWA1MON1CAC2COU1RSE3RSE2BEL3MDY1PAT4PAT3RSE1NOU2NOU3NOU1NIS1NIS2PAT2BEL4ROC1BEL1NOU25ELA3BEL5NOU5PAT5MAT2SAU1CAC3PAT6NOU4NOU26NOU6NOU19NOU20NOU18NOU17NOU28PAT7NOU16NOU15COU3NIS4NOU9NOU7NOU8PAT8SAU2NOU23NOU22MAT3NIS3CAC4NOU21ILM3COU2IDS3NOU24AWA2ROC2ILM2NOU10NOU12NOU27NOU13NOU11NOU14MAR1PAT1ELA1IDS6IDS1IDS5IDS2IDS4CAC1
0.02
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
SPECIES DELIMITATION IN NASUTITERMES SPECIES 911
ITS2 haplotypes are shown on the haplo-network of
Fig. S2 (Supporting information). According to PHASE
allele reconstruction, the same ITS2 haplotype was
shared between PSH 2a, 2b and 3, between PSHs 6 and
8 and between PSHs 6, 7 and 8.
These additional data allowed the most likely
option to be selected amongst alternate PSHs pro-
posed by ABGD and GMYC. A PSH was converted
to retained secondary species hypotheses (RSSH)
when it met the following conditions: monophyly,
support by ML BT values >70 and/or BI BPP >0.95and no shared haplotypes with another PSH, for at
least two genes. Consequently, 16 PSHs were con-
verted into RSSHs (Fig. 5).
Based on the detailed morphological analysis,
RSSHs were linked to taxonomic names available in the
literature (Fig. 5). Each RSSH could be morphologically
analysed, except RSSH 2a, which was designated as
Nasutitermes sp., resulting in fourteen known species:
RSSH 1-N. corniger, RSSH 2b-N. coxipoensis, RSSH
3-N. ephratae, RSSH 4-N. callimorphus, RSSH 5-N. inter-
medius, RSSH 7-N. guayanae, RSSH 9-N. obscurus RSSH
10-N. unduliceps, RSSH 11-N. wheeleri, RSSH 12-N. octop-
ilis, RSSH 13-N. surinamensis, RSSH 14-N. acangussu and
RSSH 15-N. acajutlae. RSSH 6 and RSSH 8 were both
morphologically identified as N. similis.
Phylogenetic analyses
Phylogenetic reconstruction for the combined mitochon-
drial alignment (66 sequences, 1426 bp, BI partitioned by
gene, arithmetic mean –ln = 6245.64) is presented Fig. 6a.
AWA1ILM1MAT1BEL2
COU1CAC2
ELA2MON1
RSE2RSE3
BEL3MDY1
BEL4ROC1NIS1NIS2NOU1NOU2NOU3PAT3RSE1
PAT2PAT4
NOU25BEL1
BEL5CAC3ELA3MAT2NOU26NOU4NOU5PAT5PAT6SAU1
NOU6
NIS4COU3
PAT8
NOU19NOU18NOU20PAT7NOU16NOU15NOU17NOU28
NOU9NOU8NOU7
NOU14NOU13NOU12NOU11NOU10NOU27
IDS2IDS1
IDS6IDS4IDS5CAC1
AWA2CAC4COU2ROC2IDS3ILM2ILM3MAT3NIS3NOU21NOU22NOU23NOU24SAU2
PAT1MAR1ELA1
Cyrilliotermes sp.Silvestritermes sp.
1.00/97.2
1.00/100
1.00/99.91.00/87.2
0.97/<70
1.00/97.9
1.00/98.1
1.00/88
1.00/97.4
1.00/100
1.00/99.6
1.00/100
1.00/86.7
1.00/84.1
1.00/100
0.2
<0.95/78.6
<0.95/82.1
<0.95/99.9
<0.95/87.8
1.00/100
1.00/100
1.00/99.9
PSH 12
PSH 14
PSH 15
PSH 10PSH 9
PSH 11
PSH 8
PSH 7
PSH 6
PSH 5
PSH 3
PSH 4
PSH 2a
PSH 1
PSH 2b
PSH 13
(a) (b) (c)
BEL3RSE2MDY1ROC1NIS2NOU1NOU2NOU3PAT3RSE1
PAT2PAT4
NOU25BEL1
ELA3CAC3MAT2NOU26NOU4NOU5PAT5PAT6SAU1NOU6
COU3PAT8
NOU28NOU17NOU16NOU15NOU20NOU18NOU19NOU8NOU7NOU9
AWA2CAC4IDS3ILM2ILM3NOU21NOU22NOU23NOU24ROC2MAT3SAU2
AWA1BEL2ILM1MAT1
MON1
ELA1MAR1
CAC1IDS2IDS1
NOU14NOU13NOU12NOU11NOU10NOU27
Silvestritermes sp.Cyrilliotermes sp.
0.99/87.1
0.99/95.1
0.98/89.4
0.99/98.9
0.99/88.8
0.96/<70
0.98/<70
1.00/100
1.00/100
1.00/100
1.00/99.9
1.00/100
1.00/99.4
0.05
PSH 12
PSH 14
PSH 15
PSH 10
PSH 9
PSH 11PSH 7
PSH 8
PSH 6
PSH 5
PSH 3
PSH 4
PSH 2a
PSH 1
PSH 2b
PSH 13
<0.95/78.8
<0.95/93.1<0.95/95.7
<0.95/75.9
<0.95/78.1
ELA2MON1MAT1ILM1BEL2AWA1
NOU14NOU13NOU12NOU11NOU10NOU27
ELA3CAC3MAT2NOU26NOU4NOU5PAT5PAT6SAU1NOU6NOU28NOU17NOU16NOU15PAT7NOU20NOU18NOU19
COU3NIS4
NOU8NOU7NOU9
PAT8AWA2CAC4COU2NIS3IDS3ILM2ILM3NOU21NOU22NOU23NOU24ROC2MAT3SAU2
ELA1MAR1
CAC1IDS4IDS5IDS6IDS1IDS2
Cyrilliotermes sp.Silvestritermes sp.
0.97/<70
1.00/93.8
1.00/98.2
1.00/99.9
1.00/82.6
1.00/100
1.00/100
0.1
<0.95/85.2PSH 1
BEL1NOU25
RSE1PAT4PAT3
PAT2NOU3NOU2NOU1NIS1NIS2ROC1BEL4
MDY1
RSE2RSE3BEL3
PSH 2aPSH 2b
PSH 3
PSH 5PSH 4
PSHs6+7+8
PSH 10PSH 9
PSH 11
PSH 14
PSH 15
PSH 13
PSH 12
<0.95/77.9
<0.95/85.2
Fig. 4 Fifty per cent majority rule consensus trees obtained from the Bayesian inference analyses of individual loci, with support val-
ues of the two analyses plotted on the nodes: BPP (Bayesian inference) >0.95/BT>70% (Maximum Likelihood). (a) COII, (b) 16S
rDNA gene and (c) ITS2. Monophyletic primary species hypotheses (PSHs) are indicated by plain lines, while nonmonophyletic/
unresolved PSHs are indicated by dotted lines.
Fig. 3 Nasutitermes ultrametric tree obtained with BEAST using the COII alignment. Generalized mixed Yule-coalescent model genetic
clusters recognized as primary species hypotheses (PSHs) are highlighted in red and separated by longer black branches (singletons).
The vertical bars group all sequences within each significant cluster, labelled with their PSH number. Figure insets in the upper left-
hand corner are the corresponding log-lineages-through-time plot showing a sudden increase in branching rate towards the present,
likely corresponding to the switch from interspecies to intraspecies branching events, and likelihood surface plot.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
912 V. ROY ET AL.
N. octopilis
N. acangussu
N. surinamensis
N. acajutlae
N. undulicepsN. obscurus
N. wheeleri
N. similis2
N. guayanae
N. similis1
N. intermediusN. callimorphus
N. ephratae
N. corniger
N. coxipoensisNasutitermes sp.
PSHs
ITS
2
N/Y
--
N/N
Y/N-
Y/Y
Y/Y
Y/Y
Y/Y
AB
GD
on
CO
II
PSH 1
PSH 2aPSH 2b
PSH 3
PSH 4PSH 5
PSH 6
PSH 7
PSH 8
PSH 9PSH 10PSH 11
PSH 12
PSH 13
PSH 14
PSH 15
GM
YC
on
CO
II
PSH 1
PSH 3
PSH 4PSH 5
PSH 6
PSH 7
PSH 8
PSH 9PSH 10PSH 11
PSH 12
PSH 13
PSH 14
PSH 15
PSH 2ab
16S
rDN
A
Consolidation
RSSH 1
RSSH 2aRSSH 2b
RSSH 3
RSSH 4RSSH 5
RSSH 6
RSSH 7
RSSH 8
RSSH 9RSSH 10RSSH 11
RSSH 12
RSSH 13
RSSH 14
RSSH 15
RSSHs Affiliation
N = 8
N = 3
N = 1
N = 11
N = 1N = 1
N = 10
N = 1
N = 8
N = 3
N = 1N = 2
N = 6
N = 14
N = 3
N = 6
CO
IIY/Y
Y/Y
--
Y/Y-
Y/Y
Y/Y
Y/Y
Y/Y
Y/Y
N/Y
-
Y/Y
-Y/Y
N/Y
Y/Y
--
Y/Y--
Y/Y
Y/Y
Y/Y
Y/Y
Y/Y
-
Y/Y
-N/Y
N = 5
N = 2
N = 1
N = 9
N = 1N = 1
N = 9
N = 1
N = 7
N = 3
N = 1N = 1
N = 6
N = 12
N = 2
N = 3
N = 6
N =3
N = 1
N = 11
N = 1N = 1
N = 9
N = 1
N = 8
N = 3
N = 1N = 2
N = 6
N = 14
N = 2
N = 6
Fig. 5 Summary results of species delimitation, consolidation and identification analyses. From left to right: primary species hypothe-
ses (PSHs) drawn from the automatic barcode gap discovery method and generalized mixed Yule-coalescent model methods from
the COII data set, consolidation of the PSHs drawn from COII, 16S rDNA and ITS2 phylogenetic analyses (monophyly, statistical
support and shared haplotypes between PSHs), retained secondary species hypotheses and their morphological affiliation. Dotted
blocks represent uncertainty on the monophyly of the PSHs (polytomy). Y-N/Y-N represents BI BPP/ML BT statistical support for
PSHs, N: number of colonies sequenced/locus/PSH.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
SPECIES DELIMITATION IN NASUTITERMES SPECIES 913
Eight internal nodes were supported by BPP > 0.95. Par-
ticularly, a cluster of five species (major cluster 1, MC1)
((((Nasutitermes sp. + N. coxipoensis) + N. ephratae) +
N. corniger) + N. callimorphus + N. intermedius) and a
cluster of six species (major cluster 2, MC2) ((((N. simi-
lis1 + N. guayanae) + N. wheeleri) + N. similis2 + N. obs-
curus) + N. unduliceps) were strongly supported by
mitochondrial data.
No incongruence between mitochondrial and nuclear
regions (p = 0.77) was detected with an incongruence
length difference test (ILD test or partition-homogeneity
test) under PAUP (Swofford 2003). The total combined
alignment (66 sequences, 1784 bp, BI partitioned by
gene, arithmetic mean –ln = 7346.36) (Fig. 6b) showed
11 internal nodes supported by BPP>0.95. A major sup-
plementary cluster of three species (major cluster 3,
MC3) (N. surinamensis + (N. acangussu + N. acajutlae))
supported by BPP > 0.95 was distinguished with the
total combined alignment.
Ancestral ecological niche reconstruction and peststatus
Mesquite reconstruction of ancestral characters indi-
cated that the ancestral ecological niche of Guianese
Nasutitermes was forest (proportional likelihood,
PL = 0.99) (Fig. 7). According to our data set, the colo-
nization of savannahs occurred independently in two
clades/lineages: (Nasutitermes sp. + N. coxipoensis) and
N. intermedius. The ancestral ecological niche of MC1, 2
and 3 was found to be forest, with relative likelihoods
suggesting no uncertainty in the character states
(PL = 0.99, 1.00 and 1.00, respectively). The seven spe-
cies reported as agricultural and structural pests in the
literature (Constantino 2002) do not form monophyletic
groups (Fig. 7), with no strict association with forest or
savannah ecological niches. Concerning our sam-
pling, only four Nasutitermes species (N. acangussu,
N. corniger, N. similis1 and N. surinamensis) showed
MON1MAT1ILM1BEL2AWA1BEL3RSE2MDY1ROC1NIS2NOU1NOU2NOU3PAT3RSE1PAT4PAT2NOU25BEL1ELA3CAC3MAT2NOU26NOU4NOU5PAT5PAT6SAU1NOU6
COU3NOU28NOU17NOU16NOU15NOU20NOU18NOU19
NOU8NOU7NOU9PAT8AWA2CAC4IDS3ILM2ILM3NOU21NOU22NOU23NOU24ROC2MAT3SAU2
ELA1MAR1
CAC1IDS2IDS1
NOU14NOU13NOU12NOU11NOU10NOU27 Cyrilliotermes sp.
Silvestritermes sp.
1.00
1.00
0.96
0.97
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.95
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.1
1.00
N. corniger
N. spN. coxipoensis
N. ephratae
N. callimorphus
N. similis2
N. similis1
N. guayanae
N. unduliceps
N. wheeleri
N. obscurus
N. surinamensis
N. acangussu
N. acajutlae
N. octopilis
N. intermedius
MC1
MC2
MC3
MON1MAT1ILM1BEL2AWA1
BEL3RSE2MDY1ROC1NIS2NOU1NOU2NOU3PAT3RSE1PAT4PAT2
BEL1NOU25
ELA3CAC3MAT2NOU26NOU4NOU5PAT5PAT6SAU1NOU6
COU3NOU28NOU17NOU16NOU15NOU20NOU18NOU19
NOU8NOU7NOU9PAT8AWA2CAC4IDS3ILM2ILM3NOU21NOU22NOU23NOU24ROC2MAT3SAU2
ELA1MAR1
CAC1IDS1IDS2
NOU14NOU13NOU12NOU11NOU10NOU27
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.96
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.05Cyrilliotermes sp.
Silvestritermes sp.
N. corniger
N. spN. coxipoensis
N. ephratae
N. callimorphus
N. similis2
N. similis1
N. guayanae
N. unduliceps
N. wheeleri
N. obscurus
N. surinamensis
N. acangussu
N. acajutlae
N. octopilis
N. intermedius
MC1
MC2
(a) (b)
Fig. 6 Fifty per cent majority rule consensus trees obtained from the Bayesian inference analyses of (a) the mitochondrial combined
alignment (COII/16S) and (b) total combined alignment (COII/16S/ITS2) with Bayesian posterior probabilities >0.95 plotted on the
nodes (intraspecific supports have been removed for clarity).
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
914 V. ROY ET AL.
colonies established in cultures and no structural pests
were sampled.
Discussion
Species delimitation in the genus Nasutitermes
Delineating and identifying species are fundamental
aims to appreciate biodiversity, to understand biological
interactions and to define functions in ecosystems.
According to Dayrat (2005), there is a critical need for
rigorously delineated species, not only for producing
accurate species inventories but because most questions
in evolutionary biology, ecology or conservation biology
depend in part on such species inventories and our
knowledge of species. In the case of diversified taxa,
such as the Nasutitermes genus, approaches based on
molecular data can provide support to species delimita-
tion and identification and accelerate biodiversity inven-
tory procedures or identification processes of pest
species for applied purposes.
In a recent study, Monaghan et al. (2009) tested the
validity of species-delimitation procedures in termites,
using the GMYC approach on the single gene COII.
Authors argued for this choice by the fact that COII
was the most polymorphic mtDNA marker that could
be readily amplified in termites, based on previous
experience in their laboratory. Although COII is not the
most variable region of the termite mitochondrial gen-
ome, Cameron and Whiting’s study (2007) on Reticulit-
ermes genomes confirmed that it is one of the most
polymorphic. Monaghan et al. (2009) validated the
N. intermedius
Nasutitermes sp.
N. similis1
N. wheeleri
N. similis2
N. obscurus
N. unduliceps
N. acajutlae
N. corniger
N. coxipoensis
N. ephratae
N. callimorphus
N. guyanae
N. surinamensis
N. acangussu
N. octopilis
MC1
MC2
MC3
Nasute termites reported as pest species in South America (Constantino 2002)
Species Site of collection (this study)
Pest status (Constantino 2002)
N. acajutlae F
N. acangussu F+AA P
N. callimorphus F P
N. obscurus F
N. corniger F+AA P
N. coxipoensis S
N. ephratae F P
N. guayanae F P
N. intermedius S
N. octopilis F P
N. similis1 F+AA
N. similis2 F
N. surinamensis F+AA P
N. unduliceps F
N. wheeleri F
Nasutitermes sp. S
Forest
Savannah
Nasute termites found associated with humans in this study
Fig. 7 Sites of collection and pest status of the sampled species, shown with a reconstruction of ancestral ecological niches obtained
with Mesquite based on the topology of the total combined tree. The ancestral habitat reconstruction was only performed for forest
vs. savannah; pest status and human association were mapped onto the tree. The ancestral habitat reconstruction was only per-
formed for forest vs. savannah; pest status and human association were mapped onto the tree. AA: anthropized areas, S: savannah,
F: forest, P: pest, MC1, 2 and 3: major clades 1, 2 and 3.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
SPECIES DELIMITATION IN NASUTITERMES SPECIES 915
approach on the termite model, justifying that GMYC
captures species boundaries comparable to those from
traditional methods (NPSHs GMYC = 23/24 and
Nmorpho = 22) and from an additional nuclear marker
(28S rDNA). In the current study, it was essentially for
practical reasons that COII was used instead of the
standardized barcode gene COI because PCR amplifica-
tion problems are recurrent for the COI gene, and
pseudogenes are strongly suspected to be encountered
when sequencing COI gene in termites. Indeed, as
underlined by Hausberger et al. (2011), the occurrence
of numts can result in misleading phylogenies and
overestimate the number of species delimited. Here, we
draw the attention on the fact that the COI gene should
be used with caution because of pseudogenes, but in no
case does this study discredit its potential utility in the
delimitation of termite species.
Automatic barcode gap discovery method (Puillandre
et al. 2012a) and GMYC (Pons et al. 2006) exploratory
procedures were applied to delimit PSHs among 79
Nasutitermes colonies collected throughout French Gui-
ana without a priori knowledge on species affiliation.
ABGD, which was applied here for the first time to
termite PSH delimitation, and GMYC retrieved similar
numbers of molecular clusters: ABGD made it possible
to delimit 16 PSHs and GMYC to delimit 15 PSHs.
ABGD and GMYC methods have been used together
and compared in a growing number of recent papers:
Puillandre et al. (2012b) and Pantaleoni & Badano
(2012) showed that GMYC and ABGD recovered similar
partitions, while Puillandre et al. (2012a) and Castelin
et al. (2012) showed contrasting results. The two meth-
ods were compared in detail in Puillandre et al. (2012b),
and the authors suggested that the two procedures
were complementary and should be used together to
increase the overall robustness of the final partition.
Exploratory single-gene methods of species delimita-
tion nevertheless have some limitations that need to be
discussed. First, as underlined by Puillandre et al.
(2012b), both ABGD and GYMC methods are problematic
when species are represented with only a few specimens.
Simulations showed that ABGD works when there are
more than 3–5 sequences per species (Puillandre et al.
2012a) and GMYC, when singletons account for up to
60% of delineated species (Monaghan et al. 2009). Our
COII data set comprised five sequences per species and
about 30% of singletons, thus exceeding these limits, but
some singleton PSHs remain difficult to discuss with
other characters and criteria. Second, the geographical
scale of sampling has been shown to affect intraspecific
genetic variability and genetic divergence from the clos-
est heterospecific (Bergsten et al. 2012). It is very likely
that our sampling scheme, which that was restricted to
French Guiana, overestimated the molecular distinctness
between species. Inversely, results may also be underesti-
mated if there is gene flow between species. We are
aware of the fact that this sampling design was not ideal
and that a bigger and more representative data set would
reduce bias induced by regionally restricted sampling.
Particularly, species with large distribution areas, such as
N. corniger and N. ephratae, merit further molecular and
morphological studies. However, results from this study
were quite clear, and morphological identification of
RSSHs confirmed that this kind of approach is applicable
to regional Nasutitermes data sets. Except for two RSSHs
(RSSH 6 and RSSH 8), which were both affiliated to
N. similis, each RSSH examined corresponded to a clearly
identified species. The absence of a clear morphological
distinction between RSSH 6 and RSSH 8 could be
explained either by close phylogenetic proximity or simi-
lar ecology. This phenomenon could be extended to
N. similis and N. guayanae because the two species are
hardly distinguishable, differing only in coloration
(Emerson 1935). Conservation in ethanol could alter this
character and confound identifications; therefore, it is
likely that the specimens identified here as N. similis1 are
actually N. guayanae.
Single-gene approaches such as ABGD and GMYC
have been demonstrated here to constitute informative
tools to detect genetic divergence even in cryptic spe-
cies such as N. similis and N. guayanae. Phylogenetic
analyses of additional genes to consolidate the single-
gene approach of delimitation showed no clear incon-
gruence in the delineation of putative species. This
result was clearly expected for mitochondrial 16S
rDNA, whose evolutionary history is linked to that of
COII, but needed to be confirmed with an unlinked
locus. A preliminary analysis on Nasutitermes species
based on partial nuclear 28S rDNA sequences showed
inappropriate variability at this evolutionary scale (data
not shown). Although ITS2 were shorter and less vari-
able sequences than mitochondrial markers, they were
suspected to offer a useful level of power for phyloge-
netic resolution at the interspecific scale (Jenkins et al.
2001; Uva et al. 2004; Roy et al. 2006). Information
obtained here from ITS2 unlinked region was not in
conflict with mitochondrial proposition, but was less
informative as it merged some of the PSHs. Indeed, it is
likely that the nuclear data set did not have enough
variable positions to resolve PSHs very closely.
Phylogenetic relationships
As underlined in the species-delimitation analysis, mito-
chondrial and nuclear data showed no conflict and pro-
vide phylogenetic information that converged towards
the same phylogenetic tree. Because single-gene
fragments were quite short (358–721 bp), combining
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
916 V. ROY ET AL.
congruent data could increase the accuracy of the phy-
logenetic reconstruction by increasing the length of the
alignment. Part of the increase in accuracy afforded by
concatenating multiple genes is contributed because
individual-gene trees may have many multifurcating
internal branches. Adding genes to a data set by concat-
enation increases the absolute number of evolutionary
changes on such branches and makes it possible to infer
them with greater accuracy. An overall increase in
sequence length also would lead to smaller variances
for evolutionary distances and other parameters in
model-based methods (Gadagkar et al. 2005). Here,
combined alignments, particularly the total combined
alignment, produced a resolved tree, with high BPP
supports.
Phylogenetic reconstructions revealed a major con-
sensus cluster, MC1: ((N. corniger + ((Nasutitermes sp. +N. coxipoensis) + N. ephratae)) + N. callimorphus + N.
intermedius). N. corniger and N. ephratae have often been
described as phylogenetically close species (Miura et al.
2000; Scheffrahn et al. 2005a,b) but, as underlined by
Hartke and Rosengaus (2011), phylogenetic analyses to
date had not clarified whether or not N. corniger and
N. ephratae are sister species. The two species are char-
acterized by differences in nest architecture, morphol-
ogy and molecular data, but data from reproductive
behaviour experiments (Hartke & Rosengaus 2011),
defensive secretions (Prestwich 1983) and isozyme
analyses (Collet & Ruvolo-Takasusuki 2003) suggest
that reproductive isolation between the species is not
complete and that hybridization could periodically
occur in nature. Based on the results of the current
study, N. ephratae does not seem to be the sister clade
of N. corniger but that of the cluster formed by the two
savannah species, N. coxipoensis and Nasutitermes sp.
Another cluster included N. surinamensis, N. acajutlae
and N. acangussu. N. acajutlae and Nasutitermes nigriceps,
the last of which was not found in our Guianese sam-
pling, are part of the N. nigriceps complex of species.
The known distributions of N. acajutlae and N. nigriceps
are allopatric (Thorne et al. 1994). Previous inventories
in French Guiana indicated the presence of both species
(Lefeuve 1990; Ensaf 2010), suggesting either a problem
of identification for specimens affiliated to N. acajutlae
and N. nigriceps or a sympatric distribution of the two
species in this region. Constantino (2002) suggested that
the species identified as N. nigriceps in South America
was probably either N. acajutlae or N. macrocephalus,
supporting the first hypothesis.
Pest species delimitation and evolution
In a review of pest termite species in South America,
Constantino (2002) reported a total of 77 structural or
agricultural pest species: 40 species were reported as
structural pests, 53 species as agricultural pests and 15
species as both. In this study, we provide molecular
information that can be used to accelerate further
delimitation and identification of seven of these species:
N. acangussu (a structural pest in Brazil), N. callimorphus
(a structural pest in Brazil), N. corniger (a widespread
structural and agricultural pest), N. ephratae (a wide-
spread structural and agricultural pest), N. guayanae (a
structural pest in Brazil, Colombia, The Guianas, Trini-
dad and Venezuela), N. octopilis (an agricultural pest in
Guyana and Brazilian Amazonia) and N. surinamensis (a
structural and agricultural pest in Amazonia and The
Guianas) (Constantino 2002). Here, only three of them
have been clearly identified in areas of French Guiana
under human influence: N. acangussu in Amerindian
cultures of Maripasoula and Elah�e, and N. corniger and
N. surinamensis in various cultures. One more species,
N. similis1, has been observed in Amerindian cultures
of Bellevue, while N. similis is not referenced as a pest
species. The presence of N. similis1 in cultures could be
serendipitous and did not cause damage to crops (but
see Discussion about N. similis1 identification). The four
other pest species (N. callimorphus, N. ephratae, N. guay-
anae and N. octopilis) have only been recorded in forests
in this study. However, it is noteworthy that colonies
affiliated to the seven pest species described in the
literature represented more than 55% of the colonies
sampled throughout French Guiana (44/79 colonies),
that is, they represent a real invasive pest potential in
the context of growing anthropization of ecosystems. A
compelling question is the basis of the difference
between the pest and nonpest species. Pest status can
be attributed to several factors, including reproductive
potential, invasiveness or the range of host crops (Reitz
2009). All of these factors are related to the basic life
cycle and life history strategy of the species, which
urgently need to be studied and compared between
Nasutitermes species.
According to the position of pest species in the phy-
logeny and the reconstruction of ancestral ecological
niches, their pest status did not seem to emerge from a
single clade or ecological niche because pest species
were scattered throughout the tree. MC1 was the major-
pest lineage comprising three pest species and includ-
ing the most important pest of the genus, N. corniger
(Constantino 2002). MC2 and MC3 also included pest
species (N. guayanae, and N. surinamensis and N. acan-
gussu, respectively). For the pest species listed here,
despite the fact that our tree is restricted to Guyanese
species, it may be assumed that there were various
independent instances of the species becoming pests.
Phylogenetic relatedness is often cited as an important
component of invasive potential (Strauss et al. 2006). In
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
SPECIES DELIMITATION IN NASUTITERMES SPECIES 917
their review on biological invasions, Le Roux and Wie-
czorek (2009) suggested that molecular phylogenies that
describe relatedness among closely related taxa that are
highly invasive, moderately invasive, minimally inva-
sive and noninvasive should reveal whether a correla-
tion exists between genetic relatedness and
invasiveness. They suggested that new and powerful
risk assessment and management protocols could be
developed if molecular phylogenies supported the cur-
rent views on the phylogenetic importance in invasive-
ness. An accurate recognition of pest species, including
the identification and characterization of cryptic species
complexes, coupled to the knowledge of evolutionary
history of ‘major-pest lineages’, is an ongoing challenge
for the application of specific control measures.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the staff of CIRAD and IRD
(Kourou, Cayenne) for field research logistic work, Valery
Gond, Corinne Rouland, Noureddine Bousserrhine, Patrick
Lavelle, Thibaud Deca€ens and Emmanuel Lapied for their sci-
entific field collaboration, Mrs Kouyouri, Mr Vanq and Mr So-
tak for agreeing to allow us to sample termites in Amerindian
and Hmongs cultural areas. The authors are grateful to Jerome
Chave and Philippe Gaucher for the use of sampling facilities
in the Nouragues station. We would also like to thank the edi-
tors of this journal and four anonymous reviewers for their
many helpful comments. This work was partially supported by
the MEDD (Ecosyst�emes Tropicaux Program, Minist�ere de
l’Environnement et du D�eveloppement Durable, France) and
by the 2010 CNRS Nouragues research grant.
References
Bandeira A, Fontes L (1979) Nasutitermes acangussu, a new
species of termite from Brazil (Isoptera, Termitidae,
Nasutitermitinae). Revista Brasileira de Entomologia, 23,
119–122.
Banks N (1918) The termites of Panama and British Guiana.
Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 38,
659–667.Bergamaschi S, Dawes-Gromadzki TZ, Luchetti A, Marini M,
Mantovani B (2007) Molecular taxonomy and phylogenetic
relationships among Australian Nasutitermes and Tumuliter-
mes genera (Isoptera, Nasutitermitinae) inferred from mito-
chondrial COII and 16S sequences. Molecular Phylogenetics
and Evolution, 45, 813–821.Bergsten J, Bilton DT, Fujisawa T et al. (2012) The effect of geo-
graphical scale of sampling on DNA Barcoding. Systematic
Biology, 61, 851–869.
Blaxter M, Mann J, Chapman T et al. (2005) Defining opera-
tional taxonomic units using DNA barcode data. Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological
Sciences, 360, 1935–1943.
Castelin M, Lorion J, Brisset J et al. (2012) Speciation patterns
in gastropods with long-lived larvae from deep-sea sea-
mounts. Molecular Ecology, 21, 4828–4853.
Coissac E, Riaz T, Puillandre N (2012) Bioinformatic challenges
for DNA metabarcoding of plants and animals. Molecular
Ecology, 21, 1834–1847.
Collet T, Ruvolo-Takasusuki MCC (2003) Genetic relationship
of Nasutitermes populations from Southern Brazil (Isoptera:
Termitidae). Sociobiology, 42, 343–349.Constantino R (2002) The pest termites of South America: tax-
onomy, distribution and status. Journal of Applied Entomology,
126, 355–365.
Dayrat B (2005) Towards integrative taxonomy. Biological Jour-
nal of the Linnean Society, 85, 407–415.
Deca€ens T, Porco D, Rougerie R, Brown GG, James SW (2013)
Potential of DNA barcoding for earthworm research in tax-
onomy and ecology. Applied Soil Ecology, 65, 35–42.Drummond AJ, Suchard MA, Xie D, Rambaut A (2012) Bayes-
ian phylogenetics with BEAUti and the BEAST 1.7. Molecular
Biology and Evolution, 29, 1969–1973.
Dupont L, Roy V, Bakkali A, Harry M (2008) Genetic vari-
ability of the soil-feeding termite Labiotermes labralis (Ter-
mitidae, Nasutitermitinae) in the Amazonian primary
forest and remnant patches. Insect Conservation and Diver-
sity, 2, 53–61.Emerson AE (1925) The termites of Kartabo, Bartica District,
British Guiana. Zoologica, 6, 291–459.Emerson AE (1935) Termitophile distribution and quantitative
characters as indicators of physiological speciation in British
Guiana termites (Isoptera). Annals of the Entomological Society
of America, 28, 369–395.
Engel MS, Grimaldi DA, Krishna K (2009) Termites (Isoptera):
their phylogeny, classification, and rise to ecological domi-
nance. American Museum Novitates, 3650, 1–27.Ensaf A (2010) Les termites de la Guyane franc�aise: Isoptera:
Kalotermitidae, Rhinotermitidae. Editions Universitaires
Europ�eennes, Saarbr€ucken, Germany.
Ensaf A, Eggleton P (2004) The identification of twenty spe-
cies of the genus Nasutitermes (Isoptera: Termitidae) from
French Guiana and the new morphological characters. Mitt-
eilungen der Schweizerischen Entomologischen Gesellschaft, 77,
311–332.Ensaf A, Betsch JM, Garrouste RE, Nel A (2003) New data on
Nasutitermes from French Guiana (Isoptera: Termitidae:
Nasutitermitinae). Annales de la Soci�et�e Entomologique de
France, 39, 239–245.Flot J-F (2007) Champuru 1.0: a computer software for unravel-
ing mixtures of two DNA sequences of unequal lengths.
Molecular Ecology Notes, 7, 974–977.
Flot J-F, Tillier A, Samadi S, Tillier S (2006) Phase determina-
tion from direct sequencing of length-variable DNA regions.
Molecular Ecology Notes, 6, 627–630.Fonseca de Souza OF, Brown VK (1994) Effects of habitat frag-
mentation on Amazonian termite communities. Journal of
Tropical Ecology, 10, 197–206.
Funk DJ, Omland KE (2003) Species-level paraphyly and poly-
phyly: frequency, causes, and consequences, with insights
from animal mitochondrial DNA. Annual Review of Ecology,
Evolution, and Systematics, 34, 397–423.
Gadagkar SR, Rosenberg MS, Kumar S (2005) Inferring species
phylogenies from multiple genes: concatenated sequence
tree versus consensus gene tree. Journal of Experimental
Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution, 304,
64–74.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
918 V. ROY ET AL.
Garnier-Sillam E, Harry M (1995) Distribution of humic com-
pounds in mounds of some soil-feeding termite species of
tropical rainforests: its influence on soil structure stability.
Insectes Sociaux, 42, 167–185.Goldstein PZ, DeSalle R (2011) Integrating DNA barcode data
and taxonomic practice: determination, discovery, and
description. BioEssays, 33, 135–147.
Gouy M, Guindon S, Gascuel O (2010) SeaView version 4: a
multiplatform graphical user interface for sequence align-
ment and phylogenetic tree building. Molecular Biology and
Evolution, 27, 221–224.
Guindon S, Dufayard J-F, Lefort V et al. (2010) New algorithms
and methods to estimate maximum-likelihood phylogenies:
assessing the performance of PhyML 3.0. Systematic Biology,
59, 307–321.
Hartke T, Rosengaus R (2011) Heterospecific pairing and
hybridization between Nasutitermes corniger and N. ephratae.
Naturwissenschaften, 98, 745–753.Hausberger B, Kimpel D, van Neer A, Korb J (2011) Uncover-
ing cryptic species diversity of a termite community in a
West African savanna. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution,
61, 964–969.Hebert PDN, Cywinska A, Ball SL, deWaard JR (2003) Biologi-
cal identifications through DNA barcodes. Proceedings of the
Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 270,
313–321.Holmgren N (1910) Versuch einer Monographie der amerikani-
sche Eutermes – Arten. Jahrbuch der Hamburgischen Wissens-
chaftlichen Anstalten, 27, 171–325.Howard RW, Thorne BL, Levings SC, Mcdaniel CA (1988)
Cuticular hydrocarbons as chemotaxonomic characters for
Nasutitermes corniger (Motschulsky) and N. ephratae (Holm-
gren) (Isoptera: Termitidae). Annals of the Entomological Soci-
ety of America, 81, 395–399.
Huelsenbeck J, Ronquist F (2001) MRBAYES: Bayesian infer-
ence of phylogenetic trees. Bioinformatic Applications Notes,
17, 754–755.Hurst GDD, Jiggins FM (2005) Problems with mitochondrial
DNA as a marker in population, phylogeographic and phy-
logenetic studies: the effects of inherited symbionts. Proceed-
ings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences,
272, 1525–1534.
Jenkins TM, Dean RE, Verkerk R, Forschler BT (2001) Phyloge-
netic analyses of two mitochondrial genes and one
nuclear intron region illuminate European subterranean ter-
mite (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) gene flow, taxonomy, and
introduction dynamics. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution,
20, 286–293.
Kass RE, Raftery AE (1995) Bayes factors. Journal of the Ameri-
can Statistical Association, 90, 773–795.
Knowles LL (2009) Estimating species trees: methods of phylo-
genetic analysis when there is incongruence across genes.
Systematic Biology, 58, 463–467.Lavelle P, Bignell D, Lepage M et al. (1997) Soil function in a
changing world: the role of invertebrate ecosystem engineers.
European Journal of Soil Biology, 33, 159–193.
Le Roux J, Wieczorek AM (2009) Molecular systematics and
population genetics of biological invasions: towards a better
understanding of invasive species management. Annals of
Applied Biology, 154, 1–17.
Leach�e AD, Fujita MK (2010) Bayesian species delimitation in
West African forest geckos (Hemidactylus fasciatus). Proceed-
ings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences,
277, 3071–3077.Lefeuve P (1990) A propos des termites de Guyane Franc�aise.
Bois et forets des tropiques, 224, 59–64.Librado P, Rozas J (2009) DnaSP v5: a software for comprehen-
sive analysis of DNA polymorphism data. Bioinformatics, 25,
1451–1452.
Maddison W, Maddison DR (2011) Mesquite: a modular sys-
tem for evolutionary analysis. Version 2.75. Available from
http://mesquiteproject.org.
Mathews AGA (1977) Studies on Termites from the Mato
Grosso State. Academia Brasileira de Ciencias, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil.
Miura T, Roisin Y, Matsumoto T (2000) Molecular phylogeny
and biogeography of the nasute termite genus Nasutitermes
(Isoptera: Termitidae) in the Pacific tropics. Molecular Phylog-
enetics and Evolution, 17, 1–10.
Monaghan MT, Wild R, Elliot M et al. (2009) Accelerated spe-
cies inventory on Madagascar using coalescent-based models
of species delineation. Systematic Biology, 58, 298–311.Moritz C, Cicero C (2004) DNA barcoding: promise and pit-
falls. PLoS Biology, 2, e354.
Nylander JAA (2004) MrModeltest v2. Program distributed by
the author. Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University,
Sweden.
O’Meara BC (2010) New heuristic methods for joint species
delimitation and species tree inference. Systematic Biology, 59,
59–73.
Pantaleoni RA, Badano D (2012) Myrmeleon punicanus n. sp., a
new pit-building antlion (Neuroptera Myrmeleontidae) from
Sicily and Pantelleria. Bulletin of Insectology, 65, 139–148.Paradis E, Claude J, Strimmer K (2004) APE: analyses of phy-
logenetics and evolution in R language. Bioinformatics, 20,
289–290.
Pons J, Barraclough TG, Gomez-Zurita J et al. (2006) Sequence-
based species delimitation for the DNA taxonomy of unde-
scribed insects. Systematic Biology, 55, 595–609.Prestwich GD (1983) Chemical systematics of termite exocrine
secretions. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 14,
287–311.
Puillandre N, Lambert A, Brouillet S, Achaz G (2012a) ABGD,
Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery for primary species
delimitation. Molecular Ecology, 21, 1864–1877.Puillandre N, Modica MV, Zhang Y et al. (2012b) Large-scale
species delimitation method for hyperdiverse groups. Molec-
ular Ecology, 21, 2671–2691.
R Development Core Team (2010) R: A Language and Environ-
ment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical
Computing, Vienna, Austria.
Reitz SR (2009) Biology and ecology of the Western flower
thrips (Thysanoptera: Thripidae): the making of a pest.
Florida Entomologist, 92, 7–13.
Roy V (2013) Dryad entry. doi: 10.5061/dryad.gh317.
Roy V, Demanche C, Livet A, Harry M (2006) Genetic differen-
tiation in the soil-feeding termite Cubitermes sp. affinis sub-
arquatus: occurrence of cryptic species revealed by
nuclear and mitochondrial markers. BMC Evolutionary
Biology, 6, 102.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
SPECIES DELIMITATION IN NASUTITERMES SPECIES 919
Rubinoff D, Holland BS (2005) Between two extremes: mito-
chondrial DNA is neither the panacea nor the nemesis of
phylogenetic and taxonomic inference. Systematic Biology, 54,
952–961.Scheffrahn RH, Krecek J, Szalanski AL, Austin JW (2005a)
Synonymy of neotropical arboreal termites Nasutitermes
corniger and N. costalis (Isoptera: Termitidae: Nasutitermiti-
nae), with evidence from morphology, genetics, and biogeog-
raphy. Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 98,
273–281.Scheffrahn RH, Krecek J, Szalanski AL, Austin JW, Roisin Y
(2005b) Synonymy of two arboreal termites (Isoptera: Ter-
mitidae: Nasutitermitinae): Nasutitermes corniger from the
neotropics and N. polygynus from New Guinea. Florida Ento-
mologist, 88, 28–33.
Song H, Buhay JE, WhitingMF, Crandall KA (2008) Many species
in one: DNA barcoding overestimates the number of spe-
cies when nuclear mitochondrial pseudogenes are coampli-
fied. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105,
13486–13491.Strauss SY, Webb CO, Salamin N (2006) Exotic taxa less related
to native species are more invasive. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, 103, 5841–5845.
Swofford D (2003) PAUP*: Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsi-
mony, Version 4.0b10. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Mas-
sachusetts.
Tamura K, Peterson D, Peterson N et al. (2011) MEGA5:
molecular evolutionary genetics analysis using maxi-
mum likelihood, evolutionary distance, and maximum par-
simony methods. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 28,
2731–2739.Thompson JD, Higgins DG, Gibson TJ (1994) CLUSTAL W:
improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence
alignment through sequence weighting, positions-specific
gap penalties and weight matrix choice. Nucleic Acids
Research, 22, 4673–4680.
Thorne BL, Haverty MI, Collins MS (1994) Taxonomy and bio-
geography of Nasutitermes acajutlae and N. nigriceps (Isoptera:
Termitidae) in the Caribbean and Central America. Annals of
the Entomological Society of America, 87, 762–770.
Uva P, Cl�ement J-L, Austin JW et al. (2004) Origin of a new
Reticulitermes termite (Isoptera, Rhinotermitidae) inferred
from mitochondrial and nuclear DNA data. Molecular Phylog-
enetics and Evolution, 30, 344–353.
Vasconcellos A, Moura F (2010) Wood litter consumption by
three species of Nasutitermes termites in an area of the Atlan-
tic Coastal Forest in northeastern Brazil. Journal of Insect
Science, 10, 72.
Yang Z, Rannala B (2010) Bayesian species delimitation using
multilocus sequence data. Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, 107, 9264–9269.
V.R. and M.H. designed research, analysed data and
wrote the article with the help of M.D., V.C. and
R.C., and V.C., V.R., M.H. and P.M. participated in
the sampling. V.R. and S.G.-M. performed the
molecular analyses. R.C. performed the morphological
analyses.
Data accessibility
DNA sequences: GenBank accession numbers for all
unique DNA sequences: COII: KC630989–KC631024,
16S rDNA: KF724731–KF724764, ITS2: KF724765–
KF724841.
Morphological data set, total combined sequence
alignment and DNA sequences: Dryad entry doi:10.
5061/dryad.gh317 (Roy 2013).
Supporting information
Additional supporting information may be found in the online
version of this article.
Appendix S1 Material and methods.
Table S1 Sequences of primers and PCR profiles used.
Table S2 Mean corrected p-distances within each PSH (intra-
cluster p-distance) for the COII gene.
Table S3 Pairwise corrected p-distances between PSHs (inter-
cluster p-distance) for the COII gene (below diagonal) and
Standard Errors (above diagonal).
Fig. S1 Map of French Guiana, showing the 16 geographic sites
of termite sampling.
Fig. S2 Median joining network showing relationships between
reconstructed ITS2 haplotypes of Nasutitermes complete data
set (N = 75 9 2).
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
920 V. ROY ET AL.