A proposal of characters for taxonomic identification of Entomobrya species (Collembola, Entomobryomorpha), with description of a new species

Abstract

The species of the genus Entomobrya have bean traditionally identified using colouration. Only some authors have considered a small number of morphological characters, in badly mounted or old specimens, as well as chaetotaxical characters (but not used for species identification). The study of a large series of slides from extensive collections of Entomobrya species with observation of the complete chaetotaxy has demonstrated that specimens with the same colour pattern can have a very different chaetotaxy, which is related with the geographical origin. On the other hand, specimens with similar chaetotaxy but from distant geographical areas maintain the same colour pattern. The present paper proposes a set of both morphological and chaetotaxical characters as a useful tool for the species identification in the genus Entomobrya in connection with the observation of colour pattern. For the selection of this set of characters more than 500 slides from the top-ranking European museums have been studied. Two species of the genus with similar colour pattern but with a different chaetotaxy are used as models for the methodology: E. nivalis (Linnaeus, 1758) and a new species from León (Spain)."By kind permission of Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz; copyright by Senckenberg Görlitz. See also: www.soil-organisms.org"