Consequences For Biological Studies
It has been suggested that cryptic species complexes are very common in the marine environment. Although this suggestion predated the detailed analysis of many systems using DNA sequence data, it has been proven correct. The increased use of DNA sequence in the investigation of organismal diversity (also called Phylogeography and DNA barcoding) has led to the discovery of a great many cryptic species complexes in all habitats. In the marine bryozoan Celleporella hyalina, detailed morphological analyses and mating compatibility tests between the isolates identified by DNA sequence analysis were used to confirm that these groups consisted of more than 10 ecologically distinct species that had been diverging for many million years.
Evidence from the identification of cryptic species has led some to conclude that current estimates of global species richness are too low. For example, mitochondrial DNA research published in January 2008 suggests that there are at least 11 genetically distinct populations of giraffes. Similar methods also found that the Amazonian frog Eleutherodactylus ockendeni is actually at least 3 different species that diverged over 5 million years ago.
Read more about this topic: Cryptic Species Complex
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