Phylogeography of the ancient Parabathynellidae (Crustacea : Bathynellacea) from the Yilgarn region of western Australia

The crustacean order Bathynellacea is a primitive group of subterranean aquatic (stygobitic) invertebrates that typically inhabits freshwater interstitial spaces in alluvia. A striking diversity of species from the bathynellaccan family Parabathynellidae have been found in the calcretes of the Yilgarn palaeodrainage system in Western Australia. Taxonomic studies show that most species are restricted in their distribution to a single calcrete, which is consistent with the findings of other phylogeographic studies of stygofauna. In this, the first molecular phylogenetic and phylogeographic study of interspecific relationships among parabathynellids, we aimed to explore the hypothesis that species are short-range endemics and restricted to single calcretes, and to investigate whether there were previously unidentified cryptic species. Analyses of sequence data based on a region of the mitochondrial (mt) DNA cytochrome c oxidase 1 gene showed the existence of divergent mtDNA lineages and species restricted in their distribution to a single calcrete, in support of the broader hypothesis that these calcretes are equivalent to closed island habitats comprising endemic taxa. Divergent mtDNA lineages were also observed to comprise four new and 12 recognised morphospecies. These results reflect the findings of previous studies of stygobitic arthropods ( beetles, amphipods and isopods) from the Yilgarn region and reinforce the usefulness of using DNA-sequence data to investigate species boundaries and the presence of cryptic species.