Barcoding fishes from the Argentine Antarctic Peninsula and adjacent Islands.

MABRAGAÑA, EZEQUIEL; DELPIANI, SERGIO MATIAS; ROSSO, JUAN JOSE; GONZÁLEZ CASTRO, MARIANO; HANNER, ROBERT; DÍAZ DE ASTARLOA, JUAN MARTÍN

Kunming

Conferencia; 5th International Barcode of Life Conference; 2013

The Antarctic fish fauna has a remarkably biological relevance due to the high endemism (c.a 95% of around 320 of the species recorded are endemic). Although several taxonomic studies were carried out on Antarctic fishes the number of species is probably underestimated as some taxa and regions have not been deeply explored. In addition, recent molecular studies showed incomplete species discrimination within some representatives of Notothenidae, Artedidraconidae and Liparidae. As part of a global project conducted by CONICET on systematic and biology of Antarctic organisms, DNA barcodes of fish species around Antarctic Peninsula and adjacent Islands were obtained and concordance with traditional morphological identification was explored. A total of 228 specimens, belonging to 28 different putative species, from 7 families were obtained from research cruises conducted by the R/V Puerto Deseado (Argentina) during summers 2011/12. COI sequences were subjected to distance based and BINs analyses. NJ/K2P reveals that nearly all species exhibit unique barcodes or clusters of closed related haplotypes. Interspecific divergence (D) was relatively high except in some species within Artedidraconidae, Liparidae, Channichthidae and Zoarcidae (D<3%). On the other hand, 26 different BINs were recognized, only lacking resolution some species of the genera Pogonophryne (D=1.8%) and Paraliparis (D= 0.6%). Our results highlight the utility of BIN system for Antarctic fishes and the concordance between morphological and DNA Barcoding identification approaches.