Species of Artemia are regionally endemic branchiopod crustaceans composed of sexual species and parthenogenetic lineages, and represent an excellent model for studying adaptation and speciation to extreme and heterogeneous hypersaline environments. We tested hypotheses of whether populations from the Tibetan Plateau belong to A. tibetiana Abatzopoulos, Zhang & Sorgeloos,1998 and whether a population from Kazakhstan is a new species, using other Asian species of Artemia as outgroups. We conducted a multitrait phylogenetic study based on the complete mitogenome, mitochondrial (COI, 12S, 16S) and nuclear (microsatellites, ITS1) markers, and a suit of uni- and multivariate morphological traits. Our results led to the discovery of two new species, one from the Tibetan Plateau (Haiyan Lake) in China (Artemia sorgeloosin. sp.) and a second from Kazakhstan (Artemia amatin. sp.). Our analysis demonstrate that A. tibetiana and A. amatin. sp. are monophyletic, whereas A. sorgeloosin. sp., and A. tibetiana are polyphyletic. Evolutionary relationships based on mitochondrial and nSSR markers suggest that A. tibetiana may have arisen from a past hybridization event of a maternal ancestor of A. tibetiana with A. sorgeloosin. sp. or its ancestor. We present the complete mitogenome of A. tibetiana, A. amatin. sp., and A. sorgeloosin. sp. We also provide a novel taxonomic identification key based on morphology, emphasizing the phenotype as a necessary component of the species concept.

Apis mellifera scutellataandApis mellifera capensis, two native subspecies of western honey bees in the Republic of South Africa (RSA), are important to beekeepers in their native region because beekeepers use these bees for honey production and pollination purposes. Additionally, both bees are important invasive pests outside of their native ranges. Recently, whole mitogenome sequencing and single nucleotide polymorphisms were used to study their genetic diversity. To add to our knowledge of the molecular ecology of both bees, we tested the ability of microsatellites to be used as a tool to discriminate betweenA.m. capensisandA.m. scutellata. We analyzed the genetic variability and overall population structure of both bee subspecies and hybrids of the two by genotyping individuals collected from RSA (N= 813 bees from 75 apiaries) at 19 microsatellite DNA loci. Overall, populations averaged between 9.2 and 11.3 alleles per locus, with unbiased heterozygosity values ranging from 0.81 to 0.86 per population. Bayesian clustering analyses revealed two distinct evolutionary units, though the results did not match those of earlier morphometric and molecular analyses. This suggests that the microsatellites we tested were not sufficient for subspecies identification purposes, especially for Cape and hybrid bees. Nevertheless, the microsatellite data highlight the considerable genetic diversity within both populations and a larger-than-expected hybridization zone between the natural distributions ofA.m. capensisandA.m. scutellata.

The genusArtemiaLeach, 1819 is a cosmopolitan halophilic crustacean, consisting of bisexual species and obligate parthenogenetic populations. Asia is rich inArtemiabiodiversity. More than 530Artemiasites have been recorded from this area and more than 20 species/subspecies/variety names have been used for them. There exist various problems in the nomenclature, identification, and phylogenetic status ofArtemianative to Asia, which are discussed in this paper.

Urmia Lake, an endorheic salt lake in northwestern Iran, was registered in the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands as a wetland of international importance, also a UNESCO biosphere reserve. In this review, we have updated our last checklist in 2014 with available information on the biodiversity of the lake.

Native American Artemia franciscana has become an introduced species in the Old World due to the rapid development of the aquaculture industry in Eurasia. The recent colonisation of A. franciscana in Mediterranean regions and Asia has been well documented, but Australia is a continent where the dispersal of this species is not well understood. In the present study, we sequenced the cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) and examined the phylogenetic relationships, haplotype network and population genetic structure of Artemia from four geographical localities in Australia and two American native localities. Our results confirmed the colonisation of Australia in all four localities by A. franciscana. First, we document the occurrence of Artemia in Mulgundawa and St Kilda localities in Australia. The Dampier population is a monomorphic population, but there is high genetic variation and a degree of demographic expansion observed in other introduced A. franciscana populations in Australia. This observation suggests an interaction between environmental conditions and adaptive potentials of A. franciscana. Our findings imply that populations from St Kilda and Port Hedland might have originated from a San Francisco Bay source, while the two other locations resulted from admixture between Great Salt Lake and San Francisco Bay sources, perhaps resulting from secondary introduction events.