Description of Andinoacara stalsbergi sp. n. (Teleostei: Cichlidae: Cichlasomatini) from Pacific coastal rivers in Peru, and annotations on the phylogeny of the genus

Abstract

Andinoacara stalsbergi sp. n. is described from the drainages of trans-andean rivers and lakes at the Peruvian Pacific coast where this species occurs between Río Chira (Depto. Piura) in the north and Río Pisco (Depto. Ica) in the south. It is distinguished from its sister species A. rivulatus by the possession of a conspicuous white margin of both the dorsal and caudal fin and scales with light centres and contrasting dark marginal lines forming a fine reticulate pattern on the body sides. Studies based on molecular data confirm the status of Andinoacara stalsbergi sp. n. and reveal its phylogenetic relationships to its congeners. The reconstruction of the phylogeny within the genus Andinoacara results in the existence of two clades: one with A. stalsbergi sp. n., A. rivulatus, A. sapayensis and A. biseriatus and another with the remaining species.

Phylogeny and historical biogeography of trans-Andean cichlid fishes (Teleostei: Cichlidae)

“…The phylogenetic reconstruction of the genus Andinoacara is consistent with previous studies (kullander, 1998;Musilová et al, 2008;Musilová et. al., 2009a;Musilová et al, 2009b). In case of Mesoheros our results are also in agreement with the previous studies (Říčan et al, 2013;McMahanet al, 2015).…”

“…However, we found that the Esmeraldas samples (putative A. blombergi) share the same haplotype with most of the A. rivulatus populations in this nuclear gene (data not shown). Contrarily, difference between sister species A. rivulatus and A. stalsbergi in this marker amounts to a divergence of 1.6% (Musilová et al, 2009b). Based on our mitochondrial results and this nuclear confirmation, we suggest considering A. blombergi as a species of questionable status, which should be tested in future by more complex genomic approach based on a substantial sampling of both species.…”

“…In order to further test our hypothesis of conspecifity between A. blombergi and A. rivulatus we have additionally sequenced the nuclear intron S7 (intron 1) for the four samples from the Esmeraldas (A. blombergi) as well as for the 23 samples of A. rivulatus. This nuclear gene is variable enough to distinguish between most cichlid species including all other Andinoacara species (Musilová et al, 2008(Musilová et al, , 2009bŘíčan et al, 2008. However, we found that the Esmeraldas samples (putative A. blombergi) share the same haplotype with most of the A. rivulatus populations in this nuclear gene (data not shown).…”