Takhteev V.V. 2019. On the current state of taxonomy of the Baikal Lake amphipods (Crustacea, Amphipoda) and the typological ways of constructing their system // Arthropoda Selecta. Vol.28. No.3: 374–402 [in English].
Department of Biological and Soil Science at Irkutsk State University, Karl Marx St. 1, Irkutsk 664003, Russia. E-mail: Amphipoda@yandex.ru
doi: 10.15298/arthsel.28.3.03
ABSTRACT. The state of macro-systematics of the Lake Baikal amphipods (354 species and subspecies) is critically reviewed. Their division into several families is advocated, despite the fact that all of them are nested within the molecular phylogenetic tree of the genus Gammarus. A historical essay of the arrangement of the Baikal amphipods to families by previous authors is provided. In the late XX to early XXI century a difficult situation arose with conflicting versions of the macrosystem: by Takhteev [2000, 2012, 2015] and Kamaltynov [1999, 2001, 2009]. The latter author did not describe any species using the own material but divided the amphipods of Lake Baikal into10 families and 13 non-nominative subfamilies, established 19 new genera, and raised 65 subspecies to the species rank. A critical review of taxonomical innovations by Kamaltynov as having no justification is given. A version of the Baikal amphipod system based on an archetypic approach is proposed. On the basis of this approach, archetypes and deviations of 7 families (including 6 families autochthonous for Baikal) with 3 subfamilies are described, and the key for definition of families on their core characteristics is provided.
KEY WORDS: amphipods, Lake Baikal, taxonomy, taxonomic inflation, archetype, core, deviations, establishment of families.