Exploring the Phylogeny and Species Diversity of Chelidoperca (Teleostei: Serranidae) From the Western Pacific Ocean by an Integrated Approach in Systematics, With Descriptions of Three New Species and a Redescription of C. lecromi Fourmanoir, 1982

Abstract

With 11 species, the genus Chelidoperca is a small group of teleost fishes belonging to the Serranidae. They are bottom-dwelling fishes living on continental shelves/slopes in offshore areas or on remote seamounts/banks at depths ranging from around 40-400 m mostly in the tropical Indo-West Pacific. Over the past few years, efforts have been made to resolve the taxonomy of Chelidoperca, and subsequently four new species were described. However, these recent advances were made with a traditional approach (i.e., morphology) and limited examinable materials, usually preserved specimens, from ichthyological collections. Further investigations are still needed to address the gaps in our knowledge about their diversity, phylogeny, and biogeography. In this study, we collected 65 new samples, mainly during eight biodiversity expeditions carried out between 2007 and 2016 in the West Pacific under the Tropical Deep-Sea Benthos program. Specimens were photographed after collection to record fresh color patterns, which are essential for species diagnosis. Our analytical approach includes state-of-the-art DNA-based methods for species delimitation. The combined evidence from both molecular and morphological examinations, as well as other information such as geography, is used to test species validity. This reveals 15 species, including six new ones. We formally describe herein C. leucostigmata sp. nov., C. microdon sp. nov., and C. barazeri sp. nov. on the basis of specimens collected on Macclesfield Bank in the South China Sea, on the Chesterfield and Island of Pines plateau of New Caledonia, and off the New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea, respectively. These new species are morphologically distinct from all other known species of Chelidoperca by body color pattern and combinations of a few identified characters. We also redescribe one of the lesser known species, C. lecromi, from fresh specimens collected close to its type locality Lee et al. Phylogeny and Diversity of Perchlets and a new site in the Coral Sea. The distributional records for this and other known species are updated accordingly. Genetic references of the species as well as an updated identification key to western Pacific species are also provided.

An integrative approach reveals five new species of highland papayas (Caricaceae, Vasconcellea) from northern Peru

“…The species-delimitation methods based on genetic distance (ABGD, SPN) and coalescence (GMYC, BPP) showed incongruent results for the six genes (Fig 2 , Table 4). Among these methods, the highest number of species was delimited by the BPP analyses (25), whereas the most conservative results were obtained from GMYC (16 ± 10) (S5 and S6 Figs, S2 Table ). Moreover, similar species numbers resulted from the ABGD (22 ± 6) and SPN (23 ± 5) analyses.…”

“…This has been overcome by methods that encompass genetic distance and coalescent approaches, which have proven very useful and been widely used for a range of taxa [15,[17][18][19][20]. Accordingly, the use of several methodologies and data sets to delimit species (i.e., integrative approaches) is highly recommended, and subsequently, the achievement of congruent results across the methods is likely to prove most useful for framing reliably supported species boundaries [21][22][23][24][25].…”

Integrative taxonomy reveals a rare and new cusk-eel species of Luciobrotula (Teleostei, Ophidiidae) from the Solomon Sea, West Pacific

“…However, after re-examining them based on a mitochondrial gene, we found that they are genetically distinct from each other. The purpose of this study is to validate the specimen collected from the Solomon Sea as representing a new species of Luciobrotula by using an integrated approach in taxonomy (Dayrat 2005;Hung et al 2017;Lo et al 2017;Lee S.-H. et al 2019).…”

“…Despite intensive sampling efforts from either local organizations in Taiwan or international expeditions through the TDSB for over a decade, only a few specimens were made available for scientific investigations. The difficulty in sampling has limited our understanding of biodiversity, phylogeny, biogeography, and ecology of deep-sea fishes such as those from the rare genus Luciobrotula or others (e.g., Chelidoperca Boulenger, 1895) (Lee S.-H. et al 2019). In spite of that, in this study we successfully uncover the hidden diversity of the Luciobrotula in the West Pacific using an integrated approach in taxonomy and conduct the first phylogenetic study of Luciobrotula.…”

Description of a new perchlet, Chelidoperca formosa, from southwestern Taiwan (Peciformes: Serranidae)

“…In the recent decade, several new species have been described on the basis of morphology and molecular sequence data (Bineesh et al ., 2013; Lee et al ., 2019; Matsunuma et al ., 2018; Matsunuma & Motomura, 2016; Ogino et al ., 2020; Psomadakis et al ., 2021; Williams & Carpenter, 2015). In addition, the taxonomy of several species has been revised through redescription and species verification (Bineesh et al ., 2014; Matsunuma, 2016; Matsunuma & Tashiro, 2020).…”