Mitochondrial phylogeny of grey mullets (Acanthopterygii: Mugilidae) suggests high proportion of cryptic species

Abstract

The low level of morphometric variability and the poor phylogenetic information borne by the morpho-anatomical characters used thus far in the systematics of grey mullets (Mugilidae) emphasize the utility of molecular systematics in this family. A recent mitochondrial phylogeny of grey mullets has uncovered multiple deep lineages within several species, flagging putative cryptic species. Here, we considered that several of the deeply divergent lineages represent separate species based on either the tree topology, independent data from nuclear markers, geographic distributions, or a combination of the foregoing. By analogy with these well-documented cases, we considered other deep lineages in seven genera we focused on to represent putative cryptic species. Up to two cryptic species were thus potentially detected in the genus Chelon, three in Crenimugil (including two within the single Crenimugil seheli), two in Dajaus, one in Ellochelon, 16 in Mugil (including 13 within the single M. cephalus), two in Osteomugil, and 10 in Planiliza. Wherever possible, we kept the current species epithets to designate those lineages that unambiguously correspond to the type material, based on type locality, and we assigned arbitrary letters (sp. A, B, etc.) to the other lineages. We present a molecular diagnosis for 24 of the species analysed in this work, as well as for 25 putative cryptic species.

The Mugil curema species complex (Pisces, Mugilidae): a new karyotype for the Pacific white mullet mitochondrial lineage

“…In the last decade, molecular phylogenetic and phylogeographic analyses have revealed that the morphological features commonly used to identify species seem to be insufficient, both to describe the great diversity of species within Mugilidae and to infer the phylogenetic relationships among the species (Durand et al 2012, Durand and Borsa 2015). More specifically, Durand et al (2012) showed that a proportion of the species with large distribution ranges, such as Mugil cephalus Linnaeus, 1758 and M. curema Valenciennes, 1836 consists of cryptic species.…”

“…Unfortunately these studies did not adopt a uniform nomenclature for the lineages (see Rossi et al 2016 for a detailed review) and did not cover the entire species range, that includes both the Eastern and Western Atlantic coasts and the Eastern Pacific coast (Froese and Pauly 2016). Durand et al (2012) and Durand and Borsa (2015) showed that these lineages are part of a Mugil curema species complex which includes M. incilis Hancock, 1830 and M. thoburni (Jordan & Starks, 1896), and at least four “ M. curema ” mitochondrial lineages, considered as cryptic species. The first lineage is distributed along the Atlantic coast of the Americas and retains the name of M. curema , as the type locality of the original M. curema is Bahia, Brazil; the second lineage is present along the Atlantic African coasts and is indicated as Mugil sp.…”

“…This paper reports the cytogenetic analysis of samples of the white mullet collected in Ecuador (Pacific Ocean); according to Durand and Borsa (2015), it is reasonable to assume that they belong to the Mugil sp. O.…”

Geography and life history traits account for the accumulation of cryptic diversity among Indo-West Pacific coral reef fishes

“…island) scales (Hubert et al 2012, Winterbottom et al 2014, Tornabene et al 2015. Unacknowledged cryptic diversity in Indo-West Pacific reef fish communities hampers our understanding of diversity patterns (Leprieur et al 2012, Mouillot et al 2013, Pellissier et al 2014) and their origin (McCafferty et al 2002, Kuriiwa et al 2007, Drew & Barber 2009, Leray et al 2010, Winters et al 2010, Gaither et al 2011, Borsa et al 2013, Sims et al 2014, Durand & Borsa 2015, Tornabene et al 2015. A broad assessment of the factors promoting cryptic diversity in coral reef ecosystems is timely, because the exploration of diversity patterns in the Indo-West Pacific is an increasingly debated topic (Jokiel & Martinelli 1992, Briggs 1999, Halas & Winterbottom 2009, Hubert et al 2012, Gaither & Rocha 2013, Tornabene et al 2015.…”

Assessing population-level morphometric variation of the Mountain Mullet Agonostomus monticola (Teleostei: Mugilidae) across its Middle American distribution

“…The few revisionary studies of the family Mugilidae (e.g., Harrison, Howes, 1991;2 e170036[2] Thomson, 1997) have fallen into frequent contradictions on the taxonomy of its members, in part because of the conservative morphology (Aurelle et al, 2008) and limited number of specimens examined along the distributional range of each species. However, the recent application of new techniques and procedures (molecular taxonomy and geometric morphometrics) in the study of the family Mugilidae have provided a different perspective on phylogeny of the taxa in this group, including the presence of cryptic species (Durand, Borsa, 2015;Ghasemzadeh, González-Castro, 2016).…”