Meeting Abstract

P3.201  Tuesday, Jan. 6  preliminary cladistic analyses of the tilefishes, percoidea: malacanthidae and branchiostegidae, based on the mitochondrial genes 16s and cyt.b genes KULLEPERUMA, Kethika*; JIMENEZ, Lizandra; DOOLEY, James K.; Adelphi University; Mt. Sinai Cytogenetics Lab; Adelphi University dooley@adelphi.edu

Two hypotheses exist: 1. tilefishes are monophyletic and belong to a single family (Malacanthidae) and two subfamilies Malacanthinae and Branchiosteginae and 2. the fishes are polyphyletic and warrant being assigned to the two families Malacanthidae and Branchiostegidae as a former morphological revision proposed. Fossil records date the group to the mid-Eocene 45 Ma. Tilefishes are a primitive benthic percoid group of fishes found world-wide in tropical to subtropical waters. They consist of five genera and 42 nominal species. These fishes are dimorphic, with one group, the elongate sandtilefishes, found in shallow to moderate sandy bottom depths (20-117m) while the other robust-bodied tilefishes are found in mud-sand bottom at greater depths (150-500m). Thus far, partial 16S (600 bp) and cyt.b (1000 bp) genes of 22 species have been sequenced for the first time and analyzed using PAUP. and MrBayes to generate a maximum parsimony (MP) and Baysian trees, respectively. PAUP maximum likelihood (ML) and neighbor-joining (NJ) analyses produced similar trees. The beryciform fish Beryx splendens was used as the outgroup. Baysian analysis produced five clades with all but Lopholatilus and Hoplolatilus formed as generic specific clades. Hoplolatilus(12 extant species) was shown to consist of 2 clades somewhat supporting , the present Hoplolatilus sub generic arrangement. MP analysis also produced a five clade tree with all but Malacanthus and Hoplolatilus forming generic specific clades. Preliminary conclusions based upon molecular data support the hypothesis that the tilefishes are polyphyletic.