Morphological characteristics and variation of gudgeon, <I>Gobio gobio</I> (Actinopterygii: Cyprinidae), from the Odra River drainage, Poland

Abstract

Gudgeon, Gobio gobio (Linnaeus, 1758) belongs to the genus Gobio, subfamily Gobioninae, one of the major subfamilies in the Cyprinidae (cf. Nelson 2006). Gobionines typically include many bottom dwellers of small to medium sized fish and are abundant in East Asia. General characteristics of species of this subfamily are: the elongateor rather oblong cylindrical bodies, an inferior mouth, and a pair of barbels (Hosoya 1986). Their morphological and ecological diversity caused a debate about which genera should be included in the Gobioninae and whether this subfamily constitutes a monophyletic group within the Cyprinidae (cf. Yang et al. 2006). The subfamily Gobioninae consists of two major phyletic lineages. The first one includes semi-bottom dwellers such as Hemibarbus, Squalius, Gobio, and Mesogobio, the second one including true bottom dwellers such as Gobiobotia, Pseudogobio, Saurogobio, Microphysogobio, and Biwia (cf. Hosoya 1986). Gobionins include approximately 130 species in about 30 genera that are widely distributed throughout northern and eastern Eurasia from Spain east to Japan and south to central Vietnam. The genus Gobio is a small fish of low economic importance, and therefore has hitherto received little attention (Callejas et al. 2004). For a long time gudgeons were thought to belong to a frequently found, polymorphic species Gobio gobio (cf. Banarescu 1992, Naseka 1998, Banarescu et al. 1999). This diversity has led to the misidentification of Central Europe gudgeons for many years (Freyhof et al. 2000). At present, approximately 20 Gobio species is distributed through Europe and Asia (Doadrio and Madeira 2004), nine species only in Europe (Naseka and Bogutskaya 1998, Ruchin and Naseka 2003). Three species, G. gobio, G. kessleri, and G. albipinnatus, occurring in Poland, have been traditionally assigned to this genus. The gudgeon, G. gobio is widely distributed in Europe except some parts of Spain, southern Italy, and Greece as ACTA ICHTHYOLOGICA ET PISCATORIA (2008) 38 (1): 9–19 DOI: 10.3750/AIP2008.38.1.02