Vol. 47 No. 4, 2008

Phylogeography of the Endangered Species, Sinogastromyzon puliensis (Cypriniformes: Balitoridae), in Southwestern Taiwan Based on mtDNA

Te-Yu Liao^1,2, Tzi-Yuan Wang^2,3, Hung-Du Lin⁴, Shih-Chieh Shen⁵, and Chyng-Shyan Tzeng^2,*

¹Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden
²Department of Life Science, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
³The Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan
⁴Department of Life Sciences, Cheng-Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan
⁵Department of Zoology, National Taiwan University, 106 Taipei, Taiwan

Te-Yu Liao, Tzi-Yuan Wang, Hung-Du Lin, Shih-Chieh Shen, and Chyng-Shyan Tzeng (2008) The initial colonization by Sinogastromyzon puliensis is hypothesized to be in southern Taiwan, followed by its northward dispersal.  To unravel its phylogeographical history, the mitochondrial control regions of S. puliensis were sequenced.  Hierarchical analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed that more genetic variation resided among populations (Φ_ST = 0.879, p = 0) than within populations (Φ_SC = 0.871, p = 0), as supported by significant pairwise F_ST values showing high genetic differentiation and rare migrations among populations.  High levels of genetic differentiation can be explained by either long-term isolation among populations or a consequence due to the founder effect.  Both a Neighbor-joining (NJ) tree and maximum parsimony (MP) analysis divided 4 populations of S. puliensis into 3 major groups.  Group I is composed of populations of the Wu and Choshui Rivers, in which reciprocal monophyly was not supported.  The Tzengwen River, comprising group II, is sister to group I.  Group III is the basal clade and consisted of only the Kaoping River in a phylogram rooted by S. wui.  According to the topological pattern and character of haplotypes without a 16-bp deletion, the Kaoping River is proposed to be the first habitat colonized by the ancestor of S. puliensis, after which this fish dispersed northwards.  This dispersal pattern is concordant with the previously proposed hypothesis.

Key words: Zoogeography, Dispersal, Glaciation, Founder effect, mtDNA D-loop.

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