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Abstract
This is the first comprehensive study to evaluate the relationships between the western
palearctic harvestman families Dicranolasmatidae, Trogulidae and Nemastomatidae with
focus on the phylogeny and systematics of Trogulidae, using combined sequence data
of the nuclear 28S rRNA and the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. Bayesian analysis
and Maximum parsimony do not reliably resolve Dicranolasma as distinct family but
place it on a similar phylogenetic level as several lineages of Trogulidae. Nemastomatidae
and Trogulidae turned out to be monophyletic, as did genera Anelasmocephalus and Trogulus
within the Trogulidae. The genera Calathocratus, Platybessobius and Trogulocratus
each appeared para or polyphyletic, respectively and are synonymized with Calathocratus.
The monotypic genus Kofiniotis is well supported. We show molecular data to be in
general concordance with taxa characterized by morphology. Molecular data are especially
useful to calibrate morphological characters for systematic purposes within homogeneous
taxa. In the majority of closely related valid species we show the lowest level of
genetic distance to be not lower than 5%. By this threshold in terms of traditionally
accepted species the estimated number of species turns out to be 1.5-2.4 times higher
than previously believed. With respect to European fauna cryptic diversity in Trogulidae
is obviously extraordinarily high and hitherto largely underestimated.