Nemipterus species, belonging to the family Nemipteridae, order Perciformes, are widely distributed in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Indo-Western Pacific. Morphologically, a number of closely related Ne-mipterus species share similar external coloration and patterns, resulting in difficulty identifying and classifying them based on morphological evidence alone. Despite this, priorevaluation of Nemipterushas primarily relied on morphological data, with few molecular phylogenetic data currently available for this genus. We analyzed the mo-lecular phylogenetic relationship among seven common Nemipterus species collected from the Indo-Western Pa-cific. Partial sequences of the 1st intron of the S7 ribosomal protein gene were obtained for seven Nemipterus and two Pentapus species. We used sequence data from Scolopsis bilineatus as an outgroup. Partial S7 sequences ranging from 734 bp to 746 bp and homologous sequences of 743 bp were obtained for phylogenetic analysis after alignment. Of the 743 bp aligned sequences, 386 sites were conservative, 351 sites were variable, and 289 were parsimony-informative. The content of A+T (54.1%)was lower than that of G+C (45.9%). The genetic distance among the seven Nemipterus species, calculated using a Kimura two-Parameter model, were between 0.042 and 0.294. We observed a number of insertions and deletions in the S7 ribosomal protein gene sequences. The inser-tions and deletions at 167 bp, 182 bp, 474 bp, 608 bp, 662 bp within N. japonicus and N. mesoprion, and at 227 bp, 332 bp, 401 bp, and 604 bp within N. virgatus and N. bipunctatus were identical. We constructed molecular phy-logenetic trees using the maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods. The seven Nemipterus species were clustered together as a monophyletic group. N. japonicus and N. mesoprion were clustered in one clade, and N. virgatus, N. bipunctatus and N. bathybius were clustered in a separate clade. These phylogenetic relationships were consistent with their morphological classifications. However, the phylogenetic position of N. bipunctatus was inconsistent with Mohds’ hypothesis under which Nemipterus species were divided into two morphologically dis-tinct groups according to the length of upper and lower caudal fin lobes. The two lobes are of equal length in N. bipunctatus, whereas N. virgatus and N. bathybius have an elongated trailing filament from their upper caudal fin and the upper fin lobe is longer than the lower. Our results suggest acombination of more morphological and mo-lecular evidence is needed for further phylogenetic studies of the Nemipterus genus.
NemipterusphylogenyS7 ribosomal protein gene
梁日深、王超、邹青、周爱国、邹记兴、ZOU Jixing
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华南农业大学 动物科学学院，广东 广州 510642
清远市北江水产科学研究所，广东 清远 511500
College of Animal Science, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
国家科技期刊平台
NSTL
万方数据
维普
