Macaronesian mayflies

A project led by Michel Sartori and Jean-Luc Gattolliat in collaboration with Michael T Monaghan (IGB, Berlin), Samantha Hughes (Center for Macaronesian Studies, Funchal) and Marco Baez (University La Laguna, Tenerife)

Macaronesia (Madeira, Azores and Canary Islands) is a volcanic archipelago located in Northern Atlantic Ocean. Despite their isolation from the mainland, these islands have been colonized by Ephemeroptera, with one species in the Azores, three in Madeira and five described species from Canary Islands. From 2005 until 2010, we collected fresh material from different places over Macaronesia.

Our goal is to investigate the genetic structure (both mitochondrial and nuclear) of these populations in order to answer the following questions:

• What is the colonisation pattern of the archipelago? A single step by step process or multiple dispersal events?
• Does the genetic data confirm the taxonomy or are they cryptic species?