Evidence of reproductive isolation among closely related sympatric species of Serrasalmus (Ostariophysii, Characidae) from the Upper Madeira River, Amazon, Bolivia

Abstract

The delimitation of the Serrasalmus species (Characiformes, Serrasalminae) from the Bolivian Amazon (Amazonas, Madeira) was examined using intron length polymorphism assessed by EPIC‐PCR. The six pairs of primers provided 16 polymorphic loci across the species of the region and the allelic diversity ranged between two and 10 alleles per locus. For each locus, the lack of departure from Hardy‐Weinberg expectations in a large number of the populations analysed and the homogenous distribution of linkage disequilibrium between paralogous loci and loci belonging to different intronic systems provided strong lines of evidence that the 16 amplified loci constituted independent neutral markers. Furthermore, allelic diversity was size‐dependent, thereby indicating that insertion‐deletions occurred frequently but randomly in introns, and that intron length polymorphism was a valid marker for investigating the systematics of piranhas. EPIC‐PCR demonstrated that eight of the nine nominal species of piranha of the Upper Madeira were reproductively isolated and identified a new species that differed from its closest morphological and genetic relatives by seven diagnostic or semi‐diagnostic loci. By contrast, no diagnostic or semi‐diagnostic locus was found between S. spilopleura and S. eigenmanni, nor were their allelic frequencies different, thereby questioning the validity of their biological species status, at least in the Upper Madeira. This study, which was one of the first applications of EPIC‐PCR to a large‐scale molecular systematic purpose, demonstrates that it is a rapid, reliable and cost‐effective tool for elucidating issues pertaining to fish systematics.