High Levels of Diversity in Subgenus Revealed by Species Delimitation Analyses

The subgenus is a poorly understood group of mosquitoes that includes several species of medical importance. Although there are currently twelve recognized species in the subgenus, previous studies have shown that this is likely to be an underestimate of species diversity. Here, we undertake a baseline study of species delimitation using the barcode region of the mtDNA gene to explore species diversity among a geographically and taxonomically diverse range of specimens. Beginning with 10 of 12 morphologically identified species spanning eight countries, species delimitation analyses indicated a high degree of cryptic diversity. Overall, our analyses found support for at least 28 species clusters within the subgenus . The most diverse taxon was , a known malaria vector, with eight species clusters. Five other species taxa showed strong signatures of species complex structure, among them , which is also considered a malaria vector. There was some evidence for species structure within , although the results were equivocal across delimitation analyses. The current study, therefore, suggests that species diversity within the subgenus has been grossly underestimated. Further work will be required to build on this molecular characterization of species diversity and will rely on genomic level approaches and additional morphological data to test these species hypotheses.