Integrative taxonomy reveals disjunct distribution and first record of Hoplias misionera (Characiformes: Erythrinidae) in the Amazon River basin: morphological, DNA barcoding and cytogenetic considerations

GUIMARÃES, KAREN LARISSA AUZIER ; ROSSO, JUAN JOSE; SOUZA, MENDELSOHN FUJIIE BELÉM; DÍAZ DE ASTARLOA, JUAN MARTÍN; RODRIGUES, LUÍS REGINALDO RIBEIRO

NEOTROPICAL ICHTHYOLOGY

SOC BRASILEIRA ICTIOLOGIA

Lugar: Porto Alegre; Año: 2021

1679-6225

The Hoplias malabaricus group encompasses six valid species and still is believed toharbors cryptic diversity. In this work, an integrative approach including morphological,DNA barcoding, and cytogenetic considerations was conducted to characterize a populationof H. malabaricus from the Amazon basin that was recently allocated in the samemitochondrial lineage with H. misionera, a species originally described to La Plata basin.The DNA barcoding analysis revealed that the Amazon population nested together with H.misionera specimens from the La Plata basin (BIN AAB1732) in the same cluster. Theintragroup distance (0.5%) was 12 times lower than the nearest neighbor (6.0%) distance.The morphometric analysis demonstrated slightly variation between Amazon and La Platapopulations, being the former composed by larger specimens. Further morphological datasupported the molecular evidence of H. misionera inhabiting Amazon basin. The karyotypecharacterization of H. misionera in the Amazon population showed 2n=40 and karyotypicformulae 20m+20sm, that added to C-banding, Ag-NOR and 18S results are suggestive ofthe similarity to karyomorph C of H. malabaricus. This work reveals the first record of H.misionera outside of La Plata basin and expands the species distribution for 2500 Kmnorthward until the Marajó Island, estuary of Amazonas River.