Journal Article
Barcoding snakeheads (Teleostei, Channidae) revisited: Discovering greater species diversity and resolving perpetuated taxonomic confusions
Conte-Grand, C., Britz, R., Dahanukar, N., Raghavan, R., Pethiyagoda, R., Tan, H.H., Hadiaty, R.K., Yaakob, N.S. and Ruber, L.
Record Number:
4447
Year:
2017
Journal:
PLoS ONE
Volume:
12(9) e0184017
Abstract:
Snakehead fishes of the family Channidae are predatory freshwater teleosts from Africa
and Asia comprising 38 valid species. Snakeheads are important food fishes (aquaculture,
live food trade) and have been introduced widely with several species becoming highly invasive.
A channid barcode library was recently assembled by Serrao and co-workers to better
detect and identify potential and established invasive snakehead species outside their
native range. Comparing our own recent phylogenetic results of this taxonomically confusing
group with those previously reported revealed several inconsistencies that prompted us
to expand and improve on previous studies. By generating 343 novel snakehead coxI
sequences and combining them with an additional 434 coxI sequences from GenBank we
highlight several problems with previous efforts towards the assembly of a snakehead reference
barcode library. We found that 16.3% of the channid coxI sequences deposited in Gen-
Bank are based on misidentifications. With the inclusion of our own data we were, however,
able to solve these cases of perpetuated taxonomic confusion. Different species delimitation
approaches we employed (BIN, GMYC, and PTP) were congruent in suggesting a potentially
much higher species diversity within snakeheads than currently recognized. In total, 90
BINs were recovered and within a total of 15 currently recognized species multiple BINs
were identified. This higher species diversity is mostly due to either the incorporation of
undescribed, narrow range, endemics from the Eastern Himalaya biodiversity hotspot or the
incorporation of several widespread species characterized by deep genetic splits between
geographically well-defined lineages. In the latter case, over-lumping in the past has
deflated the actual species numbers. Further integrative approaches are clearly needed for providing a better taxonomic understanding of snakehead diversity, new species descriptions and taxonomic revisions of the group.
Times Cited:
1
Relevent Species:
Related Records:
Kader, P.B.A. (1993)
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