Taxonomic comments on the validity of Echinostoma miyagawai Ischii, 1932 (Trematoda: Echinostomatidae)
Abstrakt
In a study that was published recently in this journal, Mohanta et al. [1] rejected the previous studies by Aneta Kostadinova and her colleagues [[2], [3], [4]]. Specifically, Mohanta et al. [1] suggested the synonymy of Echinostoma robustum Yamaguti, 1935, Echinostoma miyagawai Ischii, 1932, Echinostoma friedi Toledo, Munoz-Antoli & Esteban, 2000, and Echinostoma revolutum (Fröhlich, 1802).
Mohanta et al. claimed that because of negligible differences in the ND1 locus sequences: "These values suggest that these Echinostoma isolates, which were identified as different species, are conspecific." Nevertheless, in parallel, they continued to distinguish between E. robustum and E. revolutum in most of their analyses and proposed the existence of American and Eurasian clades of E. robustum, while they excluded the matching publicly available samples of Australian origin from the analyses without noting that [1]. While other reports agree on the synonymy of E. robustum and E. friedi, the possible synonymy of E. miyagawai with the two above-mentioned species requires further research, and the synonymy of E. miyagawai with E. revolutum lacks sufficient support.
Because incorrect identifications of E. revolutum are repeatedly published, below I discuss the misidentifications that have a potential to cause incorrect genetic diagnoses of isolates from the E. revolutum species complex, particularly E. miyagawai.