Search for: All records

Accurate identification of fishes is essential for understanding their biology and to ensure food safety for consumers. DNA barcoding is an important tool because it can verify identifications of both whole and processed fishes that have had key morphological characters removed (e.g., filets, fish meal); however, DNA reference libraries are incomplete, and public repositories for sequence data contain incorrectly identified sequences. During a nine-year sampling program in the Philippines, a global biodiversity hotspot for marine fishes, we developed a verified reference library of cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences for 2,525 specimens representing 984 species. Specimens were primarily purchased from markets, with additional diversity collected using rotenone or fishing gear. Species identifications were verified based on taxonomic, phenotypic, and genotypic data, and sequences are associated with voucher specimens, live-color photographs, and genetic samples catalogued at Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History. The Biodiversity of Philippine Marine Fishes dataset is released herein to increase knowledge of species diversity and distributions and to facilitate accurate identification of market fishes.

 

Included among the currently recognized 23 species of combtooth blennies of the genus Cirripectes (Blenniiformes: Blenniidae) of the Indo-Pacific are the Hawaiian endemic C. vanderbilti , and the widespread C. variolosus . During the course of a phylogeographic study of these species, a third species was detected, herein described as C. matatakaro . The new species is distinguished primarily by the configuration of the pore structures posterior to the lateral centers of the transverse row of nuchal cirri in addition to 12 meristic characters and nine morphometric characters documented across 72 specimens and ∼4.2% divergence in mtDNA cytochrome oxidase subunit I. The new species is currently known only from the Marquesas, Gambier, Pitcairns, Tuamotus, and Australs in the South Pacific, and the Northern Line Islands and possibly Johnston Atoll south of Hawaiʻi. Previous researchers speculated that the geographically widespread C. variolosus was included in an unresolved trichotomy with the Hawaiian endemic and other species based on a morphological phylogeny. Our molecular-phylogenetic analysis resolves many of the previously unresolved relationships within the genus and reveals C. matatakaro as the sister lineage to the Hawaiian C. vanderbilti . The restricted geographic distribution of Cirripectes matatakaro combines with its status as sister to C. vanderbilti to indicate a southern pathway of colonization into Hawaiʻi.