Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32694527›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2020

Molecular phylogenetic analysis and morphological reassessments of thief ants identify a new potential case of biological invasions.

Mostafa R Sharaf, Dietrich Gotzek, Benoit Guénard, Brian L Fisher, Abdulrahman S Aldawood, Hathal M Al Dhafer, Amr A Mohamed

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. PeerJ · 2021
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Mostafa R Sharaf *Department of Plant Protection, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. antsharaf@gmail.com.
Dietrich Gotzek *Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 20560, USA.
Benoit GuénardSchool of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Brian L FisherCalifornia Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA, 94118, USA.
Abdulrahman S AldawoodDepartment of Plant Protection, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Hathal M Al DhaferDepartment of Plant Protection, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Amr A Mohamed *Department of Entomology, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, PO Box 12613, Giza, Egypt.

Funding

GTP REGULATORY PROTEINS IN PITUITARY-DERIVED GH3 CELLSF06TW001438 · FIC · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER · PI COOPER, DERMOT M · 1989 to 1989
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6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Species delimitation offered by DNA-based approaches can provide important insights into the natural history and diversity of species, but the cogency of such processes is limited without multigene phylogenies. Recent attempts to barcode various Solenopsidini ant taxa (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae), including the thief ant Solenopsis saudiensis Sharaf & Aldawood, 2011 described from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), were precipitated by the unexpected existence of a closely related species, the Nearctic S. abdita Thompson, 1989 within the S. molesta species complex native to Florida. This finding left the species status of the former uncertain. Here, we investigated the taxonomy and phylogeny of these two species to determine whether or not S. abdita represents a new global tramp species. We inferred a phylogeny of the two species using DNA sequence data from four nuclear genes (Abd-A, EF1α-F1, EF1α-F2, and Wingless) and one mitochondrial gene (COI) sampled from populations in Florida, Guatemala, Hawaii, and Saudi Arabia. Both species clustered into one distinct and robust clade. The taxonomy of S. saudiensis was re-examined using morphometrics. A reassessment of the morphological characters used to diagnose the worker and queen castes were consistent with molecular evidence. Based on combined morphological and molecular evidences S. saudiensis is declared as a junior synonym of S. abdita (syn. nov.). In addition, our findings indicate that S. abdita is a novel global tramp species which has a far wider distribution than previously thought and has established itself in many new habitats and different geographic realms.

Indexed as

Introduced SpeciesPhenotypePhylogenyAnimalsAntsFloridaGenes, MitochondrialGeographyHawaiiSaudi Arabia

Identifiers

PMID32694527
PMCPMC7374620

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.