Sistema filogenética da subfamília aphyocharacinae (Characiformes, Characidae)

Abstract

The subfamily Aphyocharacinae comprises the genera Aphyocharax, Prionobrama, Paragoniates, Phenagoniates, Leptagoniates, Xenagoniates, Rachoviscus, and Inpaichthys. This current arrangement based on a morphological analysis is congruent with most proposed morphological phylogenetic analyses, except for the inclusion of Rachoviscus and Inpaichthys which is tenuous and not always supported by data. In this current work the goal was to investigate the monophyly of the subfamily Aphyocharacinae and to recover relationships within it using molecular and morphological analyses. Using separate parsimony and Bayesian analyses of morphological, nuclear and mitochondrial genes, I recover new relationships within Aphyocharacinae. Independent analyses recovered similar topologies for molecular and morphologic datasets. Molecular based topologies showed common generic relationships: Aphyocharacinae, excluding the genus Rachoviscus and Inpaichthys, constitutes a monophyletic group. Moreover, Aphyocharacinae has two well–marked major branches. One composed by (Paragoniates (Phenagoniates (Leptagoniates+Xenagoniates))), while the other includes Aphyocharax and Prionobrama. Also, relationships among the genera were completely resolved and supported by strong statistical indexes. Based on molecular hypotheses, I had a specific monophyletic framework to conduct morphological analysis. This approach suggests that Aphyocharacidium sp. and Microschemobrycon cf. casiquiare are most probably the sister group of Aphyocharacinae. The morphological analysis conducted with 25 unweighted and unordered characters recovers one tree, resolved at generic–species level. A similar hypothesis found using molecular data is recovered with three well–marked... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)