Meeting Abstract
Mite harvestmen are a globally distributed suborder of tiny cryptic arachnids (2-5 mm in length) that inhabit leaf litter and cave habitats. They are highly dispersal-limited, making them ideal for fine-scale historical biogeographic studies. The mite harvestman genus Austropurcellia is distributed throughout tropical rainforests along the eastern coastline of Queensland, Australia, with the majority of its diversity found within the Wet Tropics of northeast Queensland, a region known for its exceptionally high biodiversity and endemism. Due to their limited capacity for dispersal and their ability to persist even in small rainforest fragments, mite harvestmen in the Wet Tropics can provide insight into the role of climatic changes such as rainforest contraction in shaping rainforest biodiversity patterns. In recent years, Austropurcellia’s range has been thoroughly surveyed through examination of field and museum collections and there are currently 19 described species within the genus, including 15 species from the Wet Tropics. For the current study, male specimens were dissected and mounted on stubs for scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in order to assess morphological differences and determine species identities. Morphological analyses support the finding of six new species of mite harvestmen from the Wet Tropics rainforests, and are corroborated by molecular data from three loci (COI, 18S rRNA, and 28S rRNA). Emerging biogeographic patterns within Austropurcellia show concordance between geographic distribution, morphology, and phylogeny; distinct clades are distributed in different regions within the Wet Tropics, supported by a phylogeny using Bayesian inference analyses as well as by similarities in morphology within clades.
