Exploring the diversity of a neglected group of soil invertebrates (Chilopoda) across the South-Eastern Prealps

Despite their documented importance in maintaining ecosystem functioning, many groups of soildwelling invertebrates have been inadequately studied with regards to many facets of their biology. In this thesis, I focussed my attention on two poorly understood aspects of the diversity of soildwelling invertebrates: (i) local values of species richness and (ii) species boundaries. As a study system, I used one of the most neglected groups of soil invertebrates, i.e. the centipedes (Myriapoda: Chilopoda), and I carried out my research in the area of the Southeastern Prealps, which are known to harbour a large amount of biodiversity. The present work is in the form of a paper collection and contains a general introduction, two chapters and a conclusive paragraph. An original research article, dealing with the aforementioned topics, is presented at the end of each chapter. In chapter I, I addressed the dearth of knowledge on the local species richness of centipede communities. I applied statistical models to estimate the actual species richness of 10 centipede communities in the Southeastern Prealps and to compare richness values between these communities. I demonstrated that up to 27-28 species of centipedes can coexist in syntopy in temperate forests of the Southeastern Prealps, and that richness values can vary significantly among communities. In chapter II, I addressed the issue of species delimitation in poorly-vagile endogeic invertebrates, for which traditional morphology-based taxonomy has proven ineffective in identifying species boundaries. In particular, I applied a rigorous integrative approach, in order to test for the existence of species boundaries in a set of populations traditionally referred to a single species of endogeic centipede, i.e., Clinopodes carinthiacus (Chilopoda: Geophilomorpha). Taking advantage of the integration between different lines of evidence (sequences from three DNA loci and morphological characters) and different methods for species discovery (ABGD, GMYC, PTP and Expectation ...