Journal Article
Two different mental disc forms in the Tashan cave Garra: different species or ecotypes?
Hashemzadeh Segherloo, I., Najafi Chaloshtory, S., Naser, M.D., Yasser, A.G., Tabatabaei, S.N., Piette‑Lauziere, G., Mashtizadeh, A., Elmi, A., Sedighi, O., Changizi, A., Hallerman, E. and Bernatchez, L.
Record Number:
6009
Year:
2022
Journal:
bioRxiv preprint posted May 19, 2022
Notes:
The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission
Now published in Environmental Biology of Fishes
105:1251-1260
Abstract:
In the Tashan Cave barb Garra tashanensis, inhabiting a small cave in south west Iran, two mental disc
forms were observed. To assess their phylogenetic relationships, disc-less and disc-bearing individuals
were analyzed using mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) partial DNA sequences. Both
mental disc forms nested within one clade with absolute bootstrap support (BS = 100), and the genetic
distances between the disc-bearing and disc-less individuals (0.3-0.7%) was considerably lower than
inter-species mtDNA sequence distances reported among members of the genus Garra. Hence, the
observed mental disc variation was not inferred to be a taxonomic feature or a consequence of character
displacement. Instead, it was inferred as a case of character release to diversify among ecological niches
in the limited subterranean habitat, which should be clarified in follow-up ecological and population
genetic studies in more detail.
Keywords: Character displacement, Character release, Garra tashanensis, Tashan Cave, Taxonomic
feature.
Times Cited:
3