Distributional Notes on Three Wolf Spider Species (Araneae: Lycosidae) Recorded for the First Time in Diyala Province, Iraq

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  Distributional Notes on Three Wolf Spider Species (Araneae: Lycosidae) Recorded for the First Time in Diyala Province, Iraq Abstract This study presents new distributional data for three wolf spider species (Araneae: Lycosidae) from Diyala Province in eastern Iraq. Specimens were gathered from different districts and habitats between July 2025 and June 2026. The species Arctosa tbilisiensis Mcheidze, 1946, Lycosa piochardi Simon, 1876, and Wadicosa fidelis (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1872) are recorded for the first time in Diyala, extending their known ranges within Iraq. The paper describes key diagnostic morphological features and includes information about the examined specimens and their local distributions. These findings improve knowledge of the distribution of Iraqi Lycosidae and reveal that Diyala Province, despite its habitat variety, remains insufficiently studied. The records serve as a valuable baseline for future taxonomic, faunistic, and ecological research on spiders i...

Species delimitation with limited sampling: An example from rare trapdoor spider genus Cyclocosmia (Mygalomorphae, Halonoproctidae)

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Species delimitation with limited sampling: An example from rare trapdoor spider genus Cyclocosmia (Mygalomorphae, Halonoproctidae)


Abstract

The outcome of species delimitation depends on many factors, including conceptual framework, study design, data availability, methodology employed and subjective decision making. Obtaining sufficient taxon sampling in endangered or rare taxa might be difficult, particularly when non-lethal tissue collection cannot be utilized. The need to avoid overexploitation of the natural populations may thus limit methodological framework available for downstream data analyses and bias the results. We test species boundaries in rare North American trapdoor spider genus Cyclocosmia Ausserer (1871) inhabiting the Southern Coastal Plain biodiversity hotspot with the use of genomic data and two multispecies coalescent model methods. We evaluate the performance of each methodology within a limited sampling framework. To mitigate the risk of species over splitting, common in taxa with highly structured populations, we subsequently implement a species validation step via genealogical diversification index (gdi), which accounts for both genetic isolation and gene flow. We delimited eight geographically restricted lineages within sampled North American Cyclocosmia, suggesting that major river drainages in the region are likely barriers to dispersal. Our results suggest that utilizing BPP in the species discovery step might be a good option for datasets comprising hundreds of loci, but fewer individuals, which may be a common scenario for rare taxa. However, we also show that such results should be validated via gdi, in order to avoid over splitting.

Opatova, V., Bourguignon, K., & Bond, J. E. (2023). Species delimitation with limited sampling: An example from rare trapdoor spider genus Cyclocosmia (Mygalomorphae, Halonoproctidae). Molecular Ecology Resources, 00, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.13894