Abstract
ABSTRACT Accurate identification is essential for any study exploring biodiversity. Unfortunately, museum type specimens preserved for more than a hundred years are often not informative enough for precise identification of the species represented by the name-bearing type. The use of ancient DNA can help solve taxonomic problems when name-bearing types no longer have diagnostic morphological features that allow for an accurate identification of the species involved. That is the case for Deuterodon pedri, an endemic species from a small drainage in the rio Doce basin in Minas Gerais, Brazil, for which the type material is in poor condition. Specimens of D. pedri were collected in 1865 by the Thayer Expedition to Brazil and fixed in spirits, enabling them to yield viable DNA. As the morphology alone of the type material does not allow for an accurate identification, we used both morphological and ancient DNA (aDNA) methods to decisively establish the identity of D. pedri. This identification allowed us to recognize the species among recently collected specimens and then, based on them, redescribe the species. A genetype for the lectotype of D. pedri is presented.
Highlights
Taxonomy is fundamental to the biological sciences
Since the COI-1 sequence showed a p-distance 0.1 or 10% from recently collected material from the Santo Antônio River basin, which is the type locality of D. pedri, and a distance greater than 0.1 from all other characid species included in the alignment, it was excluded from further analysis
These specimens present bony hooks distributed on the anal, dorsal, pectoral, pelvic- and caudal-fin rays, instead of bony hooks only on the anal-fin rays, as observed in D. pedri. These specimens have fewer lateral line scales (35-37 vs. 3941 in D. pedri) and a humeral spot with the dorsal portion expanded like a large dot and the ventral portion narrow and curved anteriorly rather than bar-shaped as in D. pedri. We propose that these lots collected by Dom Pedro II be assigned to Astyanax hastatus Myers, 1928, which presents these same features
Summary
Taxonomy is fundamental to the biological sciences. More than merely labeling biodiversity, taxonomy is essential for any study exploring biodiversity. The accurate identification of life forms is crucial to understanding biodiversity and for any taxonomy-based study, whether phylogenetic, evolutionary, inventorial, ecological or conservation-focused (Buerki, Baker, 2016; Vecchione et al, 2000). As the traditional repository for biological specimens, and recent years for tissue samples, museum collections are a valuable resource for mapping and naming biodiversity. Independent of the collecting and storage methods, museum materials tend to degrade over time. Century-old name-bearing types are often involved in nomenclatural doubts and ambiguities because they no longer exhibit the diagnostic features that allow an accurate identification (Cappellini et al, 2013). The use of ancient DNA (aDNA) can help to solve these taxonomical problems
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