New data on a rare ektaphelenchid species, Ektaphelenchus joyceae Kaisa, Harman & Harman, 1995 (Rhabditida: Ektaphelenchinae) with its first molecular phylogenetic study

Ektaphelenchus joyceae was repeatedly isolated from pine packaging woods imported from Korea and Japan to China. They are morphologically and morphometrically very similar and are characterized by having a total body length range of 539-718 µm, cuticle with fine transverse annuli and three lines in lateral fields, slightly offset lip region with six equally sized lips, hemizonid and excretory pore well posterior to metacorpus, 14.2-18.0 µm long stylet with visible lumen and lacking knobs, simple intestine ending in a blind sac, no visible rectum and anus, monodelphic-prodelphic reproductive system with small spheroid sperm cells inside the spermatheca, short post-vulval uterine sac (PUS) and lacking males. The recovered populations agreed well with the type population based on morphometric data and morphology of females. The molecular phylogenetic analyses were performed using small, large and internal transcribed spacer regions of ribosomal RNA genes for the first time and the feeding habit of the species was also observed and documented.