Abstract
Evaluating biodiversity and understanding the processes involved in diversification are noticeable conservation issues in fishes subject to large, sometimes illegal, ornamental trade purposes. Here, the diversity and evolutionary history of the Neotropical dwarf cichlid genus Apistogramma from several South American countries are investigated. Mitochondrial and nuclear markers are used to infer phylogenetic relationships between 31 genetically identified species. The monophyly of Apistogramma is suggested, and Apistogramma species are distributed into four clades, corresponding to three morphological lineages. Divergence times estimated with the Yule process and an uncorrelated lognormal clock dated the Apistogramma origin to the beginning of the Eocene (≈ 50 Myr) suggesting that diversification might be related to marine incursions. Our molecular dating also suggests that the Quaternary glacial cycles coincide with the phases leading to Apistogramma speciation. These past events did not influence diversification rates in the speciose genus Apistogramma, since diversification appeared low and constant through time. Further characterization of processes involved in recent Apistogramma diversity will be necessary.
Highlights
The Amazon drainage system is the aquatic continental ecosystem hosting the highest fish species richness, with 2,500 species already described and some 1,000 yet to be described [1,2]
The concatenated dataset, which includes Tmo-4C4 singlecopy locus (Tmo4C4)+cytb+COI sequences of 180 individuals corresponding to 56% of the sampled specimens for, respectively, 19, 60 and 61 haplotypes, was 1545 nucleotides long and it has 583 phylogenetically informative sites (PIS) within the Apistogramma sequences
Based on the subset of Apistogramma species included in the present study, the monophyly of Apistogramma was highly supported in all tree topologies, except for the one obtained in Bayesian inference (BI) for the Tmo4C4 (Fig 1 and S1–S4 Figs): bootstrap percentages (BP) between 87% (COI) and 100% (Tmo4C4+cytb+COI); posterior probabilities (PP) = 1.00
Summary
The Amazon drainage system is the aquatic continental ecosystem hosting the highest fish species richness, with 2,500 species already described and some 1,000 yet to be described [1,2]. Two-thirds of the Neotropical freshwater ichthyofauna occur in the Amazon drainage system [1,2]. Human activities have impacted the Amazon biodiversity since at least the pre-Columbian times and this impact has dramatically increased since the 1950s [3]. Diversification in the cichlid genus Apistogramma data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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