Integrated molecular and morphological biogeography of the calanoid copepod family Eucalanidae

Species range information forms the empirical data of pelagic biogeography. Early descriptions of canonical zooplankton distributions in the Pacific Ocean were based, in part, on distributional data from the planktonic copepod family Eucalanidae. A large-scale molecular survey of this group, covering Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans (1295 individuals), increased the total diversity from 24 to 39 evolutionarily significant units (ESUs). New biogeographies are presented here for 18 lineages within 10 described species in the genera Subeucalanus, Pareucalanus, and Rhincalanus. Integration of molecular and morphological data on diversity and distribution resulted in three primary outcomes: (1) the morphological species was confirmed to be valid, and the biogeographic distribution remains largely unchanged from prior reports, (2) the species was found to contain multiple ESUs, each of which has a more restricted distribution than the parent taxon, and (3) the species was found to contain multiple ESUs, whose biogeographic distributions remain unclear. Subeucalanus subtenuis, S. mucronatus, S. subcrassus, Pareucalanus attenuatus, P. langae, and P. parki are all valid genetic and morphological species, and prior distribution records from Fleminger (1973) and Lang (1965) are confirmed to be accurate. New records in the western Indian Ocean extend the biogeographic range of S. subtenuis, S. mucronatus, S. subcrassus, and P. langae. Subeucalanus pileatus, P. sewelli, and R. rostrifrons, all species with Indo-Pacific or circumglobal distributions, consist of genetically divergent, allopatric populations that subdivide the original biogeographic range. Subeucalanus crassus and Rhincalanus nasutus are species complexes containing 4-8 genetically divergent lineages, whose distributions are inadequately characterized. Although results suggest more restricted pelagic habitats for some eucalanid species, those habitats have been previously described for other zooplanktonic taxa and do not represent new pelagic distributional types.