A recent transposition of river involving Paraná and São Francisco basins: Effects on the genetic variability and structure of the neotropical fish Parauchenipterus galeatus (Siluriformes, Auchenipteridae)

Abstract

This study analyzed sequences of the control region of mitochondrial DNA (D-loop) in three populations of Parauchenipterus galeatus from the basins of the Paraná, São Francisco, and Piumhi rivers, of which the last river being a region that suffered transposition river. A fragment of 850 base pairs was obtained with a total of 65 polymorphic sites. The data discuss aspects related to the genetic distance between the populations through the phylogenetic reconstruction methods (neighbor-joining, maximum-likelihood, and Bayesian analysis). Moreover, the data suggest that the Piumhi River population (transposition region) has recently gone through a significant bottleneck effect, which must be directly related to the anthropic action that occurred in this region, since the drainage the old existing swamp was necessary for the construction of the transposition channel potentially leading this population in to the current lack of genetic diversity.

Keywords::

• Bottleneck
• D-loop
• endogamy
• mitochondrial DNA
• molecular marker

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Dr Heraldo Antonio Britski for the identification of the specimens, and to the laboratory technicians Luis Henrique da Silva, Pedro Luis Gallo, and Alcídio Culósio Filho for their assistance with the samplings. And they are also grateful to the Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (IBAMA – License number: 10538-1) and the Instituto Estadual de Florestas (IEF/MG) for authorizing the collection of the material. This study was financed by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior.

Declaration of Interest : The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.