The Hyalella species flock of Lake Titicaca (Crustacea: Amphipoda): perspectives and drawbacks of dna-based identification

Abstract

Lake Titicaca, in the High Andes of Perú and Bolivia, harbours the world’s third most speciose ancientlake amphipod radiation on record. A minimum of nineteen species of Hyalella derived from at least five independent colonization episodes concentrate in this high altitude water body, although the actual species number present has not yet been established and could be much higher. Herein, we take advantage of the description of three new species (H. krolli, H. gonzalezi, and H. hirsuta) and the re-description of other two (H. solida and H. nefrens) to assess the feasibility of adopting a dna-based identification approach to Contributions to Zoology (2021) 1-54