Iterative taxonomy of underground crustaceans of the genus Potiberaba Fišer et al., 2013 (Crustacea: Amphipoda) in the Brazilian semiarid
Aquatic cave fauna, geographic distribution, taxonomy, Caatinga, Jandaíra Formation.
The process of expanding studies, as well as the interaction between analytical tools, has contributed to fill some knowledge gaps about various plant and animal groups, in the most diverse habitats, generating increasingly robust results. For cave environments, this process has shown great results for the knowledge of the hypogeal (cave) fauna, in ecological aspects, such as distribution limits, and even in taxonomic aspects, such as the description of new species through iterative taxonomy. In the Northeast region of Brazil, a significant number of new cave species are being described in recent years, especially in the Caatinga region. In this region, in the states of Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte, there is the formation of the Jandaíra limestone, in which around 900 caves have already been cataloged, with a high occurrence of troglobite and endemic animals. Among these are the amphipod species of the genus Potiberaba, which occupy the most diverse caves in the region, although described in 2013, little is known about the genus so far. Thus, new expeditions between 2018 and 2020 were made to obtain ecological, morphological and molecular data. Through the use of a set of analytical tools and different databases, the present study sought to expand knowledge about the genus, providing information of an ecological, morphological and genetic nature of the five species, as well as describing the new species that occupy the caves of the region. Thus, we have so far been able to describe one of the four new species, characterize the habitats of the five, as well as observe and analyze the intra and interspecific genetic and morphological diversity in the five species.