USING INTEGRATIVE TAXONOMY TO DEFINE THE IDENTITY OF SPECIMENS IN THE GENUS PENICULUS AND TRIFUR (COPEPODA: PENNELLIDAE) PARASITES OF MARINE FISCHES FROM ANTOFAGASTA BAY, CHILE

CASTRO ROMERO R.; MARTORELLI S.R; MARTINEZ AQUINO A.; MONTES MARTIN MIGUEL

Simposio; In 9th International Symposium of Fish Parasites; 2015

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas y Universidad de Valencia

Peniculus is a genus of copepod parasites of marine fishes of the family Pennellidae, widely distributed. Peniculuscurrently includes 8 species. These species are usually morphologically differentiated by the cephalothorax, neck, trunkand abdomen shape; however, these characters show high polymorphism and therefore the delimitation at level speciesof this genus is difficult using only this type of data. The genetic distances of 25 Peniculus specimens associated withnine marine fish species in Antofagasta Bay, Chile, was calculated from sequences of DNA barcoding marker (COI mt)(678 base pairs). The genetic distance among the specimens from the different host species was 0.10%. We analysed thebarcoding gene fragment using Bayesian Inference (BI) for phylogenetic reconstruction (using three outgroups). Basedon the phylogenetic analysis, an ultrametric tree was built and a general mixed Yule-coalescent (bGMYC) model forspecies delimitation was conducted. Results show that based on morphology, the individuals collected in this study canbe assigned to Peniculus cf. fistula. However, the high morphologic polymorphism observed into the lineage of Peniculusassociated to several host species of marine fishes, can be interpreted as speciation incipient pattern. Similar resultswere obtained for Trifur tortuosus parasites on Chilean marine fishes. Therefore, the molecular analysis for Peniculusspecies, especially for European Peniculus fistula is needed.