Molecular phylogeny of the South American land slug Phyllocaulis (Mollusca, Soleolifera, Veronicellidae).

Gomes, S. R., Britto da Silva, F., Mendes, I. L. V., Thomé, J. W. & Bonatto, S. L. (2009). Molecular phylogeny of the South American land slug Phyllocaulis (Mollusca, Soleolifera, Veronicellidae). — Zoologica Scripta, 39, 177–186. Our main objectives were investigate the phylogenetic relationships between the species of the land slug Phyllocaulis and the monophyly of the genus based on mitochondrial (16S and COI) and nuclear (ITS2) DNA sequences from multiple individuals from each species. Evolutionary trees were constructed using Bayesian inference, maximum likelihood, maximum parsimony and neighbor-joining methods. All species accepted in the current taxonomy based on penial characteristics and radular measurements were reciprocally monophyletic. Five species out of six formed a clade with the following highly supported relationship: Phyllocaulis gayi, Phyllocaulis soleiformis, Phyllocaulis renschi, Phyllocaulis variegatus, Phyllocaulis boraceiensis. The position of Vaginulus taunaisii changed according to the analysis, appearing as sister-group of Phyllocaulis or as sister-group of Phyllocaulis tuberculosus. Divergence times estimated from the 16S tree indicated that the extant species of Phyllocaulis shared a common ancestor around 1.3 Ma and that most species originated between 0.8 and 0.6 Ma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]