The relationships of Stichaeus nozawae (Jordan et Snyder, 1902) and Stichaeus grigorievi (Herzenstein, 1890) (Pisces: Stichaeidae) inferred from the data of genetic and karyological analyses and ultrastructural study of spermatozoa

Complete mitochondrial genome of Stichaeus nozawae Jordan & Snyder 1902 (Zoarcales: Stichaeidae)

“…Two of the species, S. grigorjewi (SG) and S. nozawae (SN), distributed along the Sea of Japan and southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk (Mecklenburg and Sheiko 2004;Parin et al 2014) have sharp discordance between morphological and molecular genetic species attributes. While SG and SN notably differ in external morphology and ecological features (Kolpakov and Klimkin 2004;Pitruk et al 2011), their molecular genetic data show a little interspecific divergence which is comparable with the intraspecific variation of eelpouts and other teleost fishes (Ward 2009;Kwun and Kim 2013;Moreva et al 2016;Turanov et al 2016). This may indicate recent splitting of two lineages, where incipient species have not accumulated enough nucleotide substitutions to delineate (e.g.…”

“…Fishes of the genus Stichaeus are known to maintain the type characters of the pricklebacks (Zoarcales: Stichaeidae) which taxonomy is the issue of concern (Mecklenburg and Sheiko 2004; Pitruk et al 2011;Parin et al 2014;Radchenko 2015;Moreva et al 2016). Two of the species, S. grigorjewi (SG) and S. nozawae (SN), distributed along the Sea of Japan and southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk (Mecklenburg and Sheiko 2004;Parin et al 2014) have sharp discordance between morphological and molecular genetic species attributes.…”