A study of osteological and molecular differences in populations of Aphanius fasciatus Nardo 1827, from the central Mediterranean (Teleostei, Cyprinodontidae)

Abstract

Nine populations of Aphanius fasciatus Nardo, 1827 from the central Mediterranean were analysed by examining the mitochondrial control region and the morphology of the bony elements of the skull and vertebral column, to study the degree of intraspeciWc diVerentiation of A. fasciatus considering the level of isolation of the diVerent populations and the palaeogeographic history of the central Mediterranean area. Both the molecular and morphological analyses diVerentiate between the populations, even if the topologies of the two trees are diVerent. The molecular results show that the nine populations are characterised by haplotypes that are well deWned in relation to a probably limited gene Xow; while, as regards the morphological data the diVerentiation found could be explained in terms of the geographic isolation of the various populations, although the inXuence of environmental factors, which diVer greatly between the various sites where the populations live, cannot be ruled out.

Genetic structure of the South European toothcarpAphanius fasciatus(Actinopterygii: Cyprinodontidae) populations in the Mediterranean basin with a focus on the Venice lagoon

“…Until now, most of the studies on A. fasciatus genetics using mitochondrial markers have mainly focused separately either on the D-loop region (Tigano et al 2004(Tigano et al , 2006Rocco et al 2007;Pappalardo et al 2008;Ferrito et al 2013;Buj et al 2015) or on a portion of the gene encoding the 16S ribosomal subunit (Triantafyllidis et al 2007). In the first case, populations from the Central Mediterranean were mainly analysed, while in the second Greek/Eastern Mediterranean populations were investigated.…”

Late Pleistocene to Holocene diversification and historical zoogeography of the Arabian killifish (<i>Aphanius dispar</i>) inferred from otolith morphology

“…This group of fishes therefore represent particularly useful organisms for the study of microevolutionary processes in vertebrates (e.g. Tigano et al 2006;Rocco et al 2007).…”

“…Maltagliati 1999, Tigano et al 2006, Triantafyllidis et al 2007. Recent methods used include analyses of molecular, meristic, morphometric and osteological characters (e.g.…”

Inter-population differences in otolith morphology are genetically encoded in the killifish <i>Aphanius fasciatus</i> (Cyprinodontiformes)

“…Moreover, the sea level fall during the Early Pleistocene (ca. 1.7 million years ago) was favoured as an explanation for the genetic divergence between A. fasciatus populations from Sicily, northern Tunisia and Malta (Tigano et al 2006).…”