Taxonomic status of the disjunct populations of the resin bee Anthidiellum breviusculum (Pérez, 1890) s.l. in the Mediterranean (Apoidea: Anthidiini).

The resin bee Anthidiellum troodicum (Mavromoustakis, 1949) was originally described from Cyprus as a subspecies of the West Mediterranean Anthidiellum breviusculum (Pérez, 1890). Although the distinctiveness of these two taxa at the species level was recognised by Andreas Müller in 1996, this finding has not found its way into the literature. Examination of new material confirms the distinct taxonomic identity of these two species, with A. troodicum being widely distributed in the eastern and A. breviusculum in the western Mediterranean, with no geographic overlap. Additionally, the geographically separated population in North Africa was found to be a distinct species, described here as A. africanum Kasparek sp. nov. While phenotypic characteristics would place it close to A. troodicum, a phylogenetic tree inferred from the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene fragment (658 bp DNA barcodes) indicates that it is closer to A. breviusculum. The clades representing these three taxa are well supported in a bootstrap analysis, with maximum likelihood values between 87 and 100%. The average genetic distance between A. africanum sp. nov. and A. breviusculum is low (at 2.4%), while it is higher between A. troodicum and A. africanum (at 4.7%) and between A. troodicum and A. breviusculum (at 6.2%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]