Filogeografia do bagre neotropical Scoloplax distolothrix Schaefer, Weitzman & Britski, 1989 (Siluriformes: Scoloplacidae)

Abstract

The Neotropical region provides great biodiversity, presenting a diverse ichthyofauna with an estimated of 8000 species. Among the families that compose this fauna, we have Scoloplacidae, which has a single genus, Scoloplax, with six species. Scoloplax distolothrix was described in 1989, along with the sister species S. empousa. For the phylogeographic study of this species, the samples of the genus were previously collected, being S. distolothrix collected from the upper and lower Xingu river and upper Araguaia river. By amplifying the COI and 16S genes, the genetic distance of the species was estimated in the MEGA program. Bayesian inference was made in BEAST. The sequences were deposited in the BOLD system for identification. The genetic distance found in the COI gene was low, confirm that is only one species, while in the phylogenetic tree it can be seen that the statistics of S. distolothrix and S. empousa were separated about 13 Ma, which coincides with a subsidence of Pantanal. About the species S. distolothrix, the ones that are less differentiated in genetic distance are from the upper Xingu and upper Araguaia individuals in relation to the bayesian, inferring that this occurrence was caused by the appearance of the Fossa do Araguaia. The sequences of species that were deposited in BOLD were identified as S. distolothrix. Keywords: scoloplacidae, miniature fish, barcode, genetic.