Cryptic and pseudocryptic species are found on all major branches of the tree of life and probably represent a significant portion of undiscovered biodiversity, yet their identification is currently possible solely on the basis of molecular analyses. Here, we tested an alternative approach and hypothesized that all genetic clades might be identified on a morphological basis, and we analysed the morphology of nine previously detected genetic clades of Hansarsia. We made 169 sets of measurements (12 quantitative characters for each), ran multinomial logistic regression models, and showed a high ability of these models to generalize (i.e. to be able to classify correctly new specimens not included in our data matrix). The five to seven most ‘powerful’ characters provided a significant detection rate; these characters were shown to represent distinct evolutionary traits. Our findings cast some doubt on the presence of the ‘merely’ cryptic species; instead, we suggest that any genetic divergence found via traditional genetic markers is also mirrored in morphological divergence and can be detected using a combination of quantitative characters and appropriate mathematical tools. We provide a script key to genetic clades of the Atlantic Hansarsia based solely on morphological measurements and encourage other researchers to use quantitative morphological characters for detection of cryptic clades in other taxa.

中文翻译：

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一种新方法可以对磷虾属 Hansarsia（以前称为 Nematoscelis）的隐秘多样性进行形态学识别

隐秘和伪隐秘物种存在于生命之树的所有主要分支上，可能代表了未被发现的生物多样性的重要部分，但目前只能基于分子分析来识别它们。在这里，我们测试了另一种方法，并假设所有遗传分支都可以在形态学基础上进行鉴定，并且我们分析了先前检测到的九个汉萨氏菌遗传分支的形态。我们进行了 169 组测量（每组 12 个定量特征），运行多项逻辑回归模型，并展示了这些模型的高度泛化能力（即能够正确分类未包含在我们的数据矩阵中的新样本）。五到七个最“强大”的角色提供了显着的检测率；这些特征被证明代表了独特的进化特征。我们的发现对“仅仅是”神秘物种的存在产生了一些怀疑。相反，我们建议通过传统遗传标记发现的任何遗传差异也反映在形态差异中，并且可以使用定量特征和适当的数学工具的组合来检测。我们仅基于形态测量提供了大西洋汉萨西亚遗传分支的脚本密钥，并鼓励其他研究人员使用定量形态特征来检测其他分类单元中的隐秘分支。