DNA barcoding revealed a wider distribution of Alburnoides holciki (Teleostei: Leuciscidae) in the inland waters of Uzbekistan

Abstract

The genus Alburnoides Jeitteles, 1861, a member of the family Leuciscidae, is distinguished from the nearest genus Alburnus Rafinesque, 1820 by having small black spots which are located on each side of the lateral line canal pore outlining the canal at least along its front portion while a dark strip reaches from behind the eye to the caudal fin (Bogutskaya & Coad, 2009). Members of Alburnoides are widespread in Eurasian waters with 35 valid species described so far (Fricke et al., 2020). Two species of Alburnoides, the Tashkent riffle bleak A. oblongus Bulgakov, 1923 and the Ashkhabad spirlin A. varentsovi Bogutskaya & Coad, 2009 were discovered in the Central Asian water basin, while the remaining Alburnoides populations of the Aral Sea basin were recognized as A. eichwaldii (Berg, 1949;Nikolski, 1938). According to the recent molecular studies, Alburnoides oblongus, occurred in the Syr Darya basin in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, has been revealed to belong to the genus Alburnus (Matveyev at al., 2017). The last revision of Alburnoides from the Caucasus and Central Asia (Bogutskaya & Coad, 2009) revealed that A. eichwaldii is restricted to Transcaucasia, and members of the genus Alburnoides in Central Asian waters belong to different species. Another recent study (Levin et al., 2019) showed that Alburnoides eichwaldii in Central Asia should be classified as Alburnoides holciki from various rivers in Tajikistan using both morphological and molecular approaches. Alburnoides holciki, was originally described by Coad and Bogutskaya (2012) from the Hari River Basin (Afghanistan and Iran). So far, this species is recorded

Molecular diversity of Uzbekistan’s fishes assessed with DNA barcoding

“…This study clarified the taxonomic status of a number of taxa, such as Alburnoides oblongus and A. taeniatus, which belong to Alburnus, which is consistent with the results of Matveyev et al 54 and Jouladeh-Roudbar et al 55 ; Schizothorax fedtschenkoi is a valid species; another Schizothorax sp. from the southern part of the country is an undescribed species; the Alburnoides population (previously considered as A. eichwaldii) from the inland waters of Uzbekistan, is de facto A. holciki 49 ; three Gobio species occur in the inland waters of the country 50 ; Glyptosternon and Rhodeus each consist of two species and not just one, as previously believed; thus, additional taxonomic research is required; two species of the genus Neogobius (N. melanostomus and N. pallasi) (previously believed to belong to N. melanostomus and N. fluviatilis 56 ) occurred in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya; the population of Opsariichthys in Uzbekistan belongs to the same species, and O. bidens is not O. uncirostris as previously believed 56 ; the entire Rhinogobius population in Uzbekistan belongs to the same species (Rhinogobius sp. ), which is neither R. brunneus nor R. similis as previously thought 56,57 ; thus, taxonomic clarification is required (Figs.…”

“…At the same time, the drying up of the Aral Sea, which is the largest water basin in the region, global climate change, population growth, river damming, water pollution, water withdrawals for agriculture, poaching, overfishing, and habitat destruction, all affect the fish species in the region 46,47 . To date, studies on piscifauna have been based mainly on traditional morphological criteria and have not been comprehensively barcoded, except in our recent studies [48][49][50] . Recently, molecular identification has been applied to identify mainly nematodes among animal species 51 .…”