Publication
Title
Taxonomic challenges in freshwater fishes : a mismatch between morphology and DNA barcoding in fish of the north-eastern part of the Congo basin
Author
Abstract
This study evaluates the utility of DNA barcoding to traditional morphology-based species identifications for the fish fauna of the north-eastern Congo basin. We compared DNA sequences (COI) of 821 samples from 206 morphologically identified species. Best match, best close match and all species barcoding analyses resulted in a rather low identification success of 87.5%, 84.5% and 64.1%, respectively. The ratio 'nearest-neighbour distance/maximum intraspecific divergence' was lower than 1 for 26.1% of the samples, indicating possible taxonomic problems. In ten genera, belonging to six families, the number of species inferred from mtDNA data exceeded the number of species identified using morphological features; and in four cases indications of possible synonymy were detected. Finally, the DNA barcodes confirmed previously known identification problems within certain genera of the Clariidae, Cyprinidae and Mormyridae. Our results underscore the large number of taxonomic problems lingering in the taxonomy of the fish fauna of the Congo basin and illustrate why DNA barcodes will contribute to future efforts to compile a reliable taxonomic inventory of the Congo basin fish fauna. Therefore, the obtained barcodes were deposited in the reference barcode library of the Barcode of Life Initiative.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Molecular ecology resources. - Oxford, 2008, currens
Publication
Oxford : 2016
ISSN
1755-098X [print]
1755-0998 [online]
DOI
10.1111/1755-0998.12445
Volume/pages
16 :1 (2016) , p. 342-352
ISI
000369141000032
Pubmed ID
26186077
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 10.03.2016
Last edited 09.10.2023
To cite this reference