ESTUDO CITOGENÉTICO E MOLECULAR PARA AVALIAÇÃO DA DIVERSIDADE DE ESPÉCIES EM PARODONTIDAE (ACTINOPTERYGII, CHARACIFORMES)

Abstract

The Neotropical fish species diversity is underestimated. There are many factors that lead to these estimates, as the lack of sampling of headwaters regions, the wide range of different environments that predispose the insulation factors, among countless others. Yet, also contributes the occurrence of species complex, where morphologically similar populations are genetically isolated in gene flow.Parodontidae (Teleostei: Characiformes) is relatively small fish family, with 32 valid species and divided into three genera: Parodon, Apareiodon and Saccodon. Representative of these fish have innumeroushomoplasic diagnostics characters, which ones hinder the identification of species.This study evaluated the validity of the Apareiodon sp. species (Rio Verde population - Upper Rio Tibagi) compared to morphologically similar species Apareiodon ibitiensis. Cytogenetic results showed karyotype differences in Apareiodon sp., which has been shown to occur for the rio Paranapanema basin, while A. ibitiensis is foundedin the rio Tietê basin. Yet, was discussed also the role of the W chromosome differentiation in Apareiodonspeciation. The nucleotide divergence of the DNA barcode confirms the occurrence of different species to A. ibitiensis, Apareiodon sp. and for A. ibitiensis of the Rio São Francisco basin. Yet, an integrated analysis of the number of cusps in premaxillary teeth, cytogenetics and nucleotide divergence using DNA barcode for six different populations identified morphologically as Apareiodon affinis was also performed. In this study, the Upper Paraná River sampling sites showed the same build karyotype and low genetic divergence. In this study, the Upper Rio Paraná sampling localities showed the same karyotype organization and low genetic divergence. However, in the Upper Rio Cuiabá, Upper Rio Paraguay and Upper Rio Uruguay populations (System Lower Rio Paraná) the cytogenetic was different among the populations, nevertheless, a low value of genetic divergence was founded too. Yet, when the Upper Rio Paraná population were compared to the Lower Rio Paraná population, both cytogenetics as genetic divergence demonstrated the occurrence of different species. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the occurrence of these species pairs and demonstrated the occurrence of morphologically similar populations, but genetically divergent due to gene flow restriction.