Meeting Abstract
Cryptic species are species that have been demonstrated to be reproductively isolated units but belong to the same nominal species. The use of genetic markers has led to a dramatic rise in the discovery and description of cryptic species in recent decades, and the marine environment is no exception. The correct identification of cryptic species is important for conservation and biodiversity monitoring, among other applications, so we set out to understand the patterns of described cryptic species in the marine literature. A systematic review in Web of Science identified over 600 described cases of cryptic species among marine metazoans. We carried out further analysis to test hypotheses including which phyla were more likely to contain reported cryptic species, whether or not the occurrence of cryptic species is related to geography or habitat, ease of sampling, etc. Furthermore, we developed a classification of cryptic species based on levels of both morphological differentiation and reproductive isolation. This allowed us to identify the cases of cryptic species in the literature that are truly cryptic (i.e. morphologically identical), versus morphologically differentiated species in need of taxonomic revision. Our results will allow for further hypothesis testing to estimate the consequences of cryptic species on biodiversity indices or other metrics.
