Molecular Phylogenetic Relationships of Exemplars of Four Spider Families from Ha’il Region, Northern Saudi Arabia and a Preliminary List of Spiders of Ha’il

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 -Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Zagazig University, Egypt. - Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Ha’il University, KSA.

2 41, El-Manteqa El-Rabia St., Heliopolis, Cairo 11341, Egypt,

Abstract

Knowledge about spider fauna in Saudi Arabia is hugely inadequate compared to adjacent countries. The present work is a preliminary study of Hai’l’s spiders. Fourteen genera, in addition to five unidentified spider species, belonging to 16 families were recorded in Ha’il Region. This is the first study of spider’s fauna in Northern Saudi Arabia and may provide a basis for future studies. In addition molecular markers including Histone (H3) and 12S rDNA sequences were used to examine the phylogenetic relationships of exemplars of the most common four spider families. The constructed tree based on both maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood of the two studied sequences revealed that the studied representatives of family Agelenidae and family Sparassidae were grouped in one supported clade. However, the relationship of this clade with the other two studied families shows controversy in both H3 and 12S trees. Results for each of the studied genes, support their reliability for phylogenetic analysis of spiders. Ha’il, Spiders list, Molecular Phylogenetics, 12S rDNA, H3.

Keywords