Large Amounts of Genetic Divergence among Italian Species of the Genus Orchesella (Insecta, Collembola) and the Relationships of Two New Species

The phylogenetic position of two putative new species of the collembolan genus Orchesella was investigated by comparison with four other Italian species of the genus using a fragment of the mitochondrial gene encoding for subunit I of cytochrome c oxidase (COI). The gene showed the well-known A + T bias, typical of insect mitochondrial DNA, although A + T content was not as high as that observed in species belonging to more derived insect...