Phylogenetic analysis of fishes of the subfamily Schizothoracinae (Teleostei:Cyprinidae) from Indian Himalayas using cytochrome b gene

Abstract

Molecular phylogeny of two genera containing five species fish of the subfamily Schizothoracinae distributed in the northand north-east Himalayas was investigated based on the partial 307 bp cytochrome b gene sequences. The sequence analysisdata showed that 48 sites out of 307 (16%) were variable without any insertion or deletion. Rate of transition (4.8%) washigher than transversion (0.65%). A total of 12 haplotypes (h) were identified. No haplotype was shared by the five species.The nucleotide diversity (Ï€) ranged from 0.00561 to 0.06073 with least between Schizothorax richardsonii and Schizothorax progastus. The phylogenetic tree, constructed by neighbour-joining, minimum evolution and maximum parsimony methodsrevealed similar results suggesting that S. richardsonii and S. progastus were more closely related to each other than the otherspecies in the subfamily, which was also confirmed by the genetic distance data. The results indicate that cytochrome b geneis useful in analysing genetic variation as well as in unravelling phylogenetic relationship in the subfamily Schizothoracinae.