Journal Article
Highlighting Astyanax Species Diversity through DNA Barcoding.
Rossini, B.C., Oliveira, C.A.M., Melo, F.A.G., Bertaco, V.A., Astarloa, J.M.D., Rosso, J.J., Fauto, F. and Oliveira, C.
Record Number:
4502
Year:
2016
Journal:
PLoS ONE
Volume:
11(12): e0167203
Abstract:
DNA barcoding has been used extensively to solve taxonomic questions and identify new
species. Neotropical fishes are found in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, with a large
number of species yet to be described, many of which are very difficult to identify. Characidae
is the most species-rich family of the Characiformes, and many of its genera are
affected by taxonomic uncertainties, including the widely-distributed, species-rich genus
Astyanax. In this study, we present an extensive analysis of Astyanax covering almost its
entire area of occurrence, based on DNA barcoding. The use of different approaches
(ABGD, GMYC and BIN) to the clustering of the sequences revealed ample consistency in
the results obtained by the initial cutoff value of 2% divergence for putative species in the
Neighbor-Joining analysis using the Kimura-2-parameter model. The results indicate the
existence of five Astyanax lineages. Some groups, such as that composed by the trans-
Andean forms, are mostly composed of well-defined species, and in others a number of
nominal species are clustered together, hampering the delimitation of species, which in
many cases proved impossible. The results confirm the extreme complexity of the systematics
of the genus Astyanax and show that DNA barcoding can be an useful tool to address
these complexes questions.
Times Cited:
1
Relevent Species: