Two new species of doubtless invasive hammerhead flatworms from Europe (France and Italy) and Africa (Mayotte)

One of the implications of globalization is the inadvertent unfold of invasive plant and animal species. Land flatworms have invaded the complete world, principally by way of the plant commerce. More than ten species are actually widespread, comparable to Obama nungara (initially from Argentina), Platydemus manokwari (from New Guinea) and Bipalium kewense (from Southeast Asia).

An worldwide workforce led by Professor Jean-Lou Justine from ISYEB (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France) studies the outline of two new species of hammerhead flatworms. This is the primary examine of those species, reported in an article revealed within the Open Access journal PeerJ.

Land flatworms are predators of soil animals, together with earthworms, slugs, and snails. They are a risk to soil biodiversity and ecology when they’re launched in a brand new atmosphere. Hammerhead flatworms are specialised members of this household exhibiting a broadened head. Numerous species of hammerhead flatworms have been described by scientists, not from specimens from their land of origin, however from specimens obtained from the international locations already invaded. This is the case, for example, for the 2 species discovered within the USA, Bipalium pennsylvanicum and Bipalium adventitium, which originate from Asia however weren’t reported from any Asian nation. The two new species described on this new paper comply with the same sample.

The analysis  highlights the issue of alien species, and their potential to turn out to be invasive. They are one of many main threats to biodiversity,  with appreciable price impacts on the financial system. A full vary of strategies had been used, together with citizen science, area expeditions, macro images, classical morphology, and new era sequencing in molecular biology.

Hammerhead flatworms embrace some “giants” amongst land flatworms, with one species reaching one metre in size. However, the brand new species described listed here are small, presumably explaining why they escaped the eye of researchers earlier than.

The first new species was named Humbertium covidum in reference to the work being accomplished throughout lockdowns brought on by the worldwide pandemic and “as homage to the victims of COVID-19,” write the authors. It was present in two gardens within the Pyrénées-Atlantiques (France) and likewise in Veneto (Italy). It is small (30 mm) and appears uniformly metallic black, an uncommon shade amongst hammerhead flatworms. Through genetic analyses of its intestinal contents, the researchers discovered that these flatworms eat small snails. The species’ origin might be Asia, and it’s probably invasive.

The second new species was named Diversibipalium mayottensis and was solely present in Mayotte (a French island within the Mozambique Channel, Indian Ocean). The species is small (30 mm) and reveals a spectacular green-blue iridescence over brown floor color. Genetic analyses, together with mitogenomes, confirmed that this species was the sister-group of all different hammerhead flatworms (subfamily Bipaliinae) and is thus of particular curiosity for understanding the evolution of those worms. Its origin may very well be Madagascar, from the place it will have been inadvertently delivered to Mayotte by folks at a while prior to now.

Jean-Lou Justine mentioned “Due to the pandemic, during the lockdowns most of us were home, with our laboratory closed. No field expeditions were possible. I convinced my colleagues to gather all the information we had about these flatworms, do the computer analyses, and finally write this very long paper. We decided to name one of the species “covidum”, paying homage to the victims of the pandemic.” 

In addition to classical anatomical and morphological descriptions, the researchers used the characters of full mitogenomes to characterize the brand new species. Mitochondrial genomes (or mitogenomes) with about 15,000 base pairs, present a big quantity of data, particularly particulars about their genes. The researchers, who had beforehand studied the mitogenomes in 4 species of land flatworms, describe right here the whole mitogenomes of 5 species of  hammerhead flatworms. Complete mitogenomes and different sequences usually used for phylogeny, comparable to these of Small and Large Subunit Ribosomal RNA (SSU and LSU), allowed the analysis workforce to suggest the primary molecular examine of relationships throughout the hammerhead flatworms (subfamily Bipaliinae).