DNA barcoding reveals taxonomic conflicts in the Herichthys bartoni species group (Pisces: Cichlidae)

Abstract

Fishes of the genus Herichthys are the only representatives of the family Cichlidae to have colonized the Neartic region. In this study, we used DNA barcode of 64 individuals of the Herichthys bartoni species group to test the monophyly of the species and the efficiency of this tool to discriminate among species. The Bayesian phylogenetic tree and the neighbour joining (NJ) tree obtained from the Kimura two-parameter model (K2P) give similar topologies. DNA barcoding resolution was very poor (25%). Additionally, the low levels of genetic divergence among taxa preclude the use of threshold values as has been suggested in earlier studies.

Morphometric variation of the Herichthys bartoni (Bean, 1892) species group (Teleostei: Cichlidae): How many species comprise H. labridens (Pellegrin, 1903)?

“…All specimens were identified using the diagnostic characters described by Taylor & Miller (1983) and De la Maza-Benignos & Lozano-Vilano (2013) and are deposited in the Colección Nacional de Peces Dulceacuícolas Mexicanos de la Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas (IPN-ENCB-P). In line with the information presented earlier (Miller et al, 2005;León-Romero et al, 2012 Phylogenetic DNA barcoding updated. We generated the DNA barcodings for three individuals from H. pame to assign a phylogenetic position within the previously published tree of León-Romero et al (2012).…”

“…In line with the information presented earlier (Miller et al, 2005;León-Romero et al, 2012 Phylogenetic DNA barcoding updated. We generated the DNA barcodings for three individuals from H. pame to assign a phylogenetic position within the previously published tree of León-Romero et al (2012). The parameters of the Bayesian analysis and the selected outgroups were the same as the previously published data.…”

“…In this study, we performed a morphological revision of the Herichthys bartoni species group using meristic, morphometric, and geometric morphometrics data to assess the proposal of recently described species and the identity of uncertain populations. Following the proposal of Miller et al (2005), we restricted the name of H. labridens to the populations of the headwaters of the río Verde, San Luis Potosí and referred to the rest of populations that are currently identified as H. labridens and included in phylogenetic group III, as defined by León-Romero et al (2012), as H. cf. labridens, except for H. pame and H. molango, which were considered distinct species.…”

Response paper: Morphometric article by Mejía et al. 2015 alluding genera Herichthys and Nosferatu displays serious inconsistencies

“…Furthermore, separate molecular analysis by Concheiro-Pérez et al (2007), De la Maza-Benignos et al (2015), Hulsey et al (2004), López-Fernández et al (2010), León-Romero et al (2012), Mejía et al (2015), Magalhaes et al (2015), McMahan et al (2015) and Oldfield et al (2015) support the monophyly of the Nosferatu + Herichthys clade as well as separation between both genera. Moreover, the separate analysis of the mitochondrial gene Cox1 by León-Romero et al (2012), De la Maza-Benignos et al (2015), and Mejía et al (2015) reveal the existence of three clades in Nosferatu: 1) the bartoni clade (= phylogenetic group I sensu Mejía et al, 2015); 2) the steindachneri clade (= phylogenetic group II sensu Mejía et al, 2015); and 3) the pantostictus clade (in the study by León-Romero et al (2012) and Mejía et al (2015) some of the lineages of N. pantostictus are misidentified as H. cf. labridens, and consequently, they reported polyphyly).…”

“…For more information on the systematics and zoogeography of both clades see Concheiro-Pérez et al (2007), De la Maza-Benignos & Lozano-Vilano (2013), De la Maza-Benignos et al (2015), Hulsey et al (2004), López-Fernández et al (2010), León-Romero et al (2012), Magalhaes et al (2015), McMahan et al (2015) and Oldfield et al (2015), to name a few.…”