Does your lip stick? Evolutionary aspects of the mouth morphology of the Indo‐Pacific clinging goby of theSicyopterusgenus (Teleostei: Gobioidei: Sicydiinae) based on mitogenome phylogeny

Abstract

Sicydiinae gobies have an amphidromous life cycle. Adults grow, feed, and reproduce in rivers, while larvae have a marine dispersal phase. Larvae recruit back to rivers and settle in upstream habitats. Within the Sicydiinae subfamily, the Sicyopterus genus, one of the most diverse (24 species), is distributed in the tropical islands of the Indo‐Pacific. One of the characters used to determine Sicyopterus species is the upper lip morphology, which can be either smooth, crenulated, or with papillae, and with (2 or 3) or without clefts. The mouth is used as a secondary locomotor organ along with the pelvic sucker. It is thus strongly related to the climbing ability of species and is of major importance for the upstream migration and the colonization of insular freshwater systems. The mouth also has an important role in the feeding mechanism of these herbivorous species. In this paper, we have established a molecular phylogeny of the genus based on the 13 mitochondrial protein‐coding genes to discuss the relationship between 18 Sicyopterus species. There is a well‐supported dichotomy in the molecular phylogeny of the Sicyopterus genus and this separation into two clades is also morphologically visible, with the distinction of species with three clefts and species with 0 or 2 clefts on the upper lip. The mouth morphology can thus be separated with regard to the molecular phylogeny obtained. The evolution of the mouth morphology is discussed in terms of the adaptation of the Sicyopterus genus to settlement and life in tropical insular river systems.

Morphometric and genetic variations of species composers of nike fish assemblages in Gorontalo Bay Waters, Indonesia

“…(Keith et al 2011;Taillebois et al 2014). The genus Sicyopterus of the Sicydiinae subfamily is the genus with the highest diversity of species and is widely distributed to the Indo-Pacific tropical islands (Keith et al 2005;Keith et al 2015;Lord et al 2019). It strengthens the results of this study which found Sicyopterus as the genus with the highest diversity of Gorontalo Bay waters.…”

“…The S. parvei species are known to be Indonesian local endemic (LE) (Lord et al 2019). Its distribution in Indonesia was found in Manggarai, Flores (Tjakrawidjaja 2002); Sukamade river, East Java (Rukmana et al 2014); and Java and Bali (Dahruddin et al 2016).…”

Freshwater gobies 30 million years ago: New insights into character evolution and phylogenetic relationships of †Pirskeniidae (Gobioidei, Teleostei)

“…It excludes several of the characters provided in the original genus diagnosis because, according to the current knowledge of the osteology of gobioids, they appear in many groups. These characters relate to the anteriorly elongate and posteriorly broadened parasphenoid; the toothed premaxillary and dentary; the presence of small, curved, conical oral teeth; the symplectic foramen; the opercle without spines; the bifurcated posttemporal; the presence of four radials; the presence of vertebral centra that are longer than high; the caudal skeleton with two large hypural plates (Hy), comprising Hy1+2 and Hy3+4, and a small hypural plate 5; and the presence of branched fin rays (see [ 4 – 6 , 20 , 29 , 48 , 51 , 52 , 54 – 56 ]). The shape of the frontal bones is also excluded, as it has been shown to differ between congeneric species [ 12 ].…”

Investigating Diadromy in Fishes and Its Loss in an -Omics Era

“…(2012) Assembly of mitochondrial genome Sicyopterus lagocephalus No Chiang et al. (2015) Phylogeny (mitogenome) Sicyopterus genus No Lord et al. (2019) Populations diversity and structure Galaxias maculatus Yes Delgado et al.…”