Molecular identification of Leporinus from the south portion of South America

Abstract

AbstractAnostomidae is a widely distributed group that includes the species rich Leporinus. This genus is widespread in South America, including its south portion where they are mainly distributed in the São Francisco and La Plata basins. Here we obtained sequences of mitochondrial and nuclear genes of 19 species of Leporinus with the objective of testing our methods of molecular species identification and to test the similarities between species of Leporinus of the São Francisco and La Plata basins. Results show that two species pair have a genetic distance below 2% (L. paranensis x L. obtusidens and L. paranensis x L. aff. paranensis). Our results also show that a high genetic distance occurs in L. obtusidens and L. striatus suggesting a possible local differentiation of these species. An interesting finding of our study is that the genetic similarities observed among species does not corroborate the division of species of Leporinus in groups according to color patterns. Additionally, our results show that the species of Leporinus from the La Plata and São Francisco are not more similar among themselves than to species of other drainages which could be explained by the occurrence of recent fauna exchanges between these two basins and adjacent basins.