Dense Taxon Sampling Using AFLPs Leads to Greater Accuracy in Phylogeny Estimation and Classification of Darters (Percidae: Etheostomatinae)

Comparative Morphology and Evolution of Genital Papillae in a Genus of Darters (Percidae:Etheostoma)

“…Specimens of 128 species of Etheostoma and two outgroup species, Ammocrypta vivax and Percina maculata, were examined (Material Examined). Subgeneric assignments are those used by Smith et al (2014). Lateral and ventral views of genital papillae were taken using Canon 40D and 5D cameras fitted with an Infinity Optics K2 long distance microscope on a Visionary Digital TM P-51 CamLift (Palmyra, VA) at the Florida Museum of Natural History.…”

“…Ancestral state reconstruction.-Maximum likelihood ancestral character state reconstructions were performed on two phylogenies, one derived from an AFLP dataset (Smith et al, 2014), and another from combined nuclear (S7 and RAG1) and mitochondrial (cytb) datasets (Near et al, 2011); the latter is referred to below as the 3TE (three-gene total evidence) tree. The phylogenies were obtained directly from researchers (Smith et al, 2014) or TreeBASE (Near et al, 2011, http://treebase.org/treebase-web/search/study/summary.…”

“…T HE evolutionary history of Etheostoma, the most species-rich genus of fishes in the fresh waters of North America (Page and Burr, 2011;Page et al, 2013), has been a topic of interest for over a century, and numerous phylogenetic hypotheses and genus-level classifications have been proposed using morphological and molecular data (Page, 1981;Wood and Mayden, 1997;Song et al, 1998;Sloss et al, 2004;Ayache and Near, 2009;Near et al, 2011;Smith et al, 2011Smith et al, , 2014. Unfortunately, these hypotheses often have produced conflicting results because of unrecognized homoplastic characteristics and introgression (Page and Swofford, 1984;Sloss et al, 2004;Carlson and Wainwright, 2010;Near et al, 2011;Near and Keck, 2012).…”

“…Recent studies on evolutionary relationships of darters have employed AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism) data (Smith et al, 2011(Smith et al, , 2014, and nuclear (S7 and RAG1) and mitochondrial (cytb) DNA sequence data (Near et al, 2011). These studies consistently recovered several traditionally recognized subgenera within Etheostoma as monophyletic, including Boleosoma, Doration, Etheostoma, Fuscatelum, Litocara, Microperca, Nanostoma (or Ulocentra), Nothonotus, Oligocephalus, Poecilichthys, Psychromaster, and Vaillantia.…”

“…These studies consistently recovered several traditionally recognized subgenera within Etheostoma as monophyletic, including Boleosoma, Doration, Etheostoma, Fuscatelum, Litocara, Microperca, Nanostoma (or Ulocentra), Nothonotus, Oligocephalus, Poecilichthys, Psychromaster, and Vaillantia. In contrast, Catonotus, composed of the barcheek, fantail, and spottail darters, was recovered as monophyletic by Smith et al (2011Smith et al ( , 2014 and Near and Keck (2012), but polyphyletic by Near et al (2011). When polyphyletic, the spottail darter group was separate from barcheek and fantail darters and was given the name Stigmacerca by Near et al (2011).…”