Is the genus Potamophylax (Trichoptera: Limnephilidae) highly polymorphic?
Oláh János
Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 57(1): 253-257, 2017
Published online: 30th June 2017
Views: 1268
Abstract: The present deprived state of taxonomy gives no appropriate resources for
taxonomists to apply more sophisticated phenomic tools and to carry out more
appropriate population sampling. Without fine structure analysis of large
population samples there is no hope to discover speciation traits and there is
no chance to delineate young incipient sibling species with subtle but stable
shape divergences. Phylogenetic species complexes of these incipient species are
frequently mistaken with species polymorphism. However, historical polymorphism
is a sympatric phenomenon based on discontinuous variation inside a panmictic
population and not between geographically isolated populations. I continue to
consider Potamophylax mista (Navas, 1918) a valid species following the evidence
given by Oláh et al. (2013).
Key words: Trichoptera, Potamophylax, polymorphism, polyphenism