Diversity of neotropical electric fish Microsternarchus (Teleostei: Gymnotiformes: Hypopomidae): an electrophysiological and geometric morphometric approach
-
1
INPA, CBIO, Brazil
-
2
UMass, United States
The South American hypopomid electric fish tribe Microsternarchini includes three small species from the Upper Orinoco and Negro rivers. These are placed in monotypic genera: Microsternarchus, Racenisia and Procerusternarchus. Recent collections from tributaries in Negro, Solimões and Amazonas Basins have revealed new specimens of Microsternarchus with significant variations in external morphology and in Electric Organ Discharge parameters (EOD). In order to estimate the diversity within the genus a previous molecular study was done using DNA barcoding, that suggested the presence of multiple Microsternarchus's lineages with high levels of genetic divergence between them.
Here we try to determine if the variation in morphology and EOD parameters in the new specimens meet the genetic divergence found.
To test the presence of differences in shape among the different lineages we performed a geometric morphometric analysis, which included a relative warp and multivariate analysis on distances between 14 anatomical landmarks defined on the basis of external morphology and homologous among the lineages. The EOD variations were also explored using multivariate analyses of 20 electrophysiological parameters calculated through an algorithm developed in Matlab.
The results show that there are significant differences in body shape and EOD in three lineages of Microsternarchus, and the features that contributed most were related to the shape of the head, the coefficient of variation of the signal and the duration and area of the different phases of the pulse. The discrimination of the three lineages confirms the occurrence of new species in the group that are currently being described.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the following institutions for their financial support: MCTI, Fapeam and CNPq.
Keywords:
Electric organ discharge,
Gymnotiformes,
Amazon basin,
Combined Taxonomy,
DNA barcode,
freshwater fish,
Morphometric Geometrics
Conference:
XV European Congress of Ichthyology, Porto, Portugal, 7 Sep - 11 Sep, 2015.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Phylogeny, Systematics and Genetics
Citation:
Nogueira
A,
Fernandes
CC,
Alves-Gomes
JA,
Nascimento
RB and
Maia
CR
(2015). Diversity of neotropical electric fish Microsternarchus (Teleostei: Gymnotiformes: Hypopomidae): an electrophysiological and geometric morphometric approach.
Front. Mar. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
XV European Congress of Ichthyology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fmars.2015.03.00083
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
13 Nov 2015;
Published Online:
17 Nov 2015.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Adília Nogueira, INPA, CBIO, Manaus, Amazonas - AM, 69067-375, Brazil, alidianog@gmail.com