Opening the Pandora Box: DNA-barcoding evidence limitations of morphology to identify Spanish mosquitoes

Abstract

Cryptic speciation is frequent in the medically important mosquitoes. While most findings have been reported in tropical regions, it is an unexplored topic in countries where mosquito-borne diseases are not endemic, like Spain. The occurrence of recent outbreaks in Europe has increased the awareness on the native and invasive mosquito fauna present in the continent. Therefore, the central question of this study is whether the typological approach is sufficient to identify Spanish mosquitoes. To address this problem, we confronted the results of the morphological identification of 62 adult specimens collected from four different regions of Spain (La Rioja, Navarra, Castellon and the Island of Majorca) with the results obtained through DNA-barcoding. We conducted a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the COI gene region and compared this with the results of four species delimitation algorithms (ABGD initial partition, ABGD P=0.46%, bPTP and TCS). We report strong evidence for cryptic speciation in Anopheles algeriensis and Aedes vexans and reproductive isolation of the rock pool mosquito Aedes mariae. In addition, we report that the character present in the wings is not efficient to distinguish species Culiseta annulata from Culiseta subochrea, which distribution in the country may be different than previously described.