Creation of Species-specific Molecular Signatures of Schilbeid Fishes from River Ganga by Integrative Taxonomy

Abstract

The phylogenetic analysis of Asian schilbeids could not be clearly defined due to lack of data, so the present study generated morphological and DNA barcode data for five commercially important schielbid species namely Clupisoma garua, Eutropiichthys murius, E. vacha, Ailia coila and Silonia silondia from the River Ganga, India. Additionally, 31 sequences of Schielbid species available in GenBank were also included in analysis to present a clear picture of the phylogenetic relationship among Schilbeids. The evolutionary history was inferred by using the Maximum Likelihood method based on the Hasegawa-Kishino-Yano model with Gamma distribution. The average Kimura two parameter (K2P) distance between the species and within the species, show the sufficient separation of species. The neighbour-joining tree revealed distinct clusters in concurrence with the taxonomic status of the species. Our study established sister group relationship between genera of Asian schilbeids as Clupisoma,Laides, Eutropiicthys, Silonia, Ailia, Horabagrus, Pseudeutropius, Neotropius or Pachypterus and also suggest placement of C. sinensis to the genus Laides.