ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Molecular Biology and Ecology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1586527
Whole-genome survey reveals the genomic characteristics and phylogeny of three species within the family Echeneidae
Provisionally accepted
- 1Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
- 2Wuhan Onemore-Tech Co., Ltd, Wuhan, China
- 3Zhejiang Ocean University, Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The family Echeneidae, which belongs to the order Carangiformes, is a group of marine fish recognized for their distinctive hitchhiking behavior. In this study, high-throughput sequencing technology was utilized to investigate the genomic characteristics of three species within the family Echeneidae. The results indicated that the genome sizes of Remora remora, Remora albescens, and Echeneis naucrates were 677.93 Mb, 574.19 Mb, and 572.04 Mb, respectively, and they exhibited similar genomic features. The GC content of these species ranged from 40.37% to 41.50%, the repeat sequence proportion varied between 27.98% and 39.53%, and the heterozygosity rate extended from 0.43% to 0.65%. A total of 527,027, 440,593, and 458,014 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were identified in the genomes of R. remora, R. albescens, and E. naucrates, with mononucleotide repeats being the predominant type. The mitochondrial genomes of the three species were successfully assembled based on the genomic data. The phylogenetic tree constructed from single-copy orthologous genes demonstrated that R. remora and R. albescens clustered within the genus Remora, while E. naucrates formed a lineage in the genus Echeneis. The results of the PSMC analysis revealed that these three species experienced rapid population expansion before the Last Interglacial Period, followed by a decline in their populations after reaching their peak during the Last Glacial Period. Notably, R. albescens exhibited significant bimodal population dynamics during both the Last Glacial and Glacial Maximum Periods. Overall, this study provides valuable genomic data for the research of Echeneidae species and establishes a crucial foundation for further exploration of their evolutionary history and ecological adaptations.
Keywords: Echeneidae, whole-genome survey, Genomic characteristics, microsatellite, Phylogenetic evolution
Received: 03 Mar 2025; Accepted: 19 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Liu, Qu, Gao, Guo and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Fenglin Wang, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.