A taxonomic reevaluation of North American Daphnia (Crustacea: Cladocera). I. The D. similis complex
Allozyme analysis of 28 populations of Daphnia similis s.l. from the western United States and Canada indicated the presence of three different species. One taxon, D. salina, is newly described and a second species, D. exilis, previously synonymized with D. similis, is also shown to be distinct. Species recognition is not solely reliant on allozyme analysis, as morphological differences among the species are conspicuous. Daphnia salina is a halophile, while the other two species occur in habitats of lower but variable salinity. All three taxa appear to reproduce by cyclic parthenogenesis, although levels of genetic diversity were so low in D. salina that determination of its breeding system was tentative. Genetic distance analysis suggested that D. salina diverged from the other two species some 27 million years ago, whereas D. exilis and D. similis separated 9 million years ago.