A NEW SPECIES OF BRYOCYCLOPS (COPEPODA: CYCLOPIDAE) FROM LEAF LITTER IN THE LAUREL FORESTS OF MADEIRA ISLAND, PORTUGAL

Wet litter can harbour a diverse copepod fauna, and plays a not yet fully understood role in the dispersal of groundwater organisms. A new species of Bryocyclops, a circumtropical genus occurring in cave and semiterrestrial habitats, has been found in the leaf litter of Laurisilva, the native and relict forests on Madeira Island. Bryocyclops laurisilvae sp. nov. belongs to a species assemblage traditionally named as Group I in the genus. The new species can be distinguished from other species by several apomorphic features, such as the sexually dimorphic setation of the endopodites of leg 3 and leg 4, and the oligomerized maxilliped. A sister relationship between B. laurisilvae sp. nov. and stygobiotic B. absalomi Por, 1981 (Israel) is supported by, among others, the apomorphies of leg 3 in male and leg 4 in female. The new species differs from B. absalomi in the presence of coxopodite seta on leg 1, the shorter dorsal and longer posterolateral and outer terminal caudal setae, and the acute, hook-like tip of the apical spine on the distal endopodite segment of leg 3 in the male. The relationships of the laurisilvae-absalomi clade remains ambiguous, as the limb morphology in many species is still insufficiently understood.