Interrelationships of the Subgenera of Coryphaenoides (Gadiformes: Macrouridae): Comparison of Protein Electrophoresis and Peptide Mapping

Abstract

Allelic-frequency data were obtained at 24 presumptive gene loci from eight species of macrourids representing three of the four subgenera of the genus Coryphaenoides. Unrooted trees were produced according to four methods: restricted maximum-likelihood, neighbor joining over Rogers' modified genetic distance, Rogers' minimum-length tree, and frequency parsimony (FREQPARS). These same allelic-frequency data were used to calculate a length for each tree by inputting the trees into FREQPARS. Unrooted trees were also produced from data derived from peptide maps of the Ldh-A4 homologs of the same species according to two methods: neighbor joining over a dissimilarity matrix and maximum parsimony (Wagner). The allelic-frequency data were then again used to calculate the length of the peptide trees. The topologies of the shortest trees, which differed in length by only 3.1%, produced from the two types of data were then compared and discussed. It was determined that only if the two shortest trees are rooted at either of the two abyssal subgenera would the results support the present taxonomic arrangement of subgenera of Coryphaenoides.