Molecular Phylogeny of Philippine Tigerperches (Perciformes: Terapontidae) Based on Mitochondrial Genes

Reynand Jay C. Canoy^1,2,3, Ian Kendrich C. Fontanilla^1,2, and Jonas P. Quilang^1,2*

¹Natural Sciences Research Institute, University of the Philippines
Diliman, Quezon City 1101 Philippines
²Institute of Biology, College of Science, University of the Philippines
Diliman, Quezon City 1101 Philippines
³Institute of Human Genetics, National Institutes of Health
University of the Philippines Manila, 625 Pedro Gil St., Ermita, Manila 1000 Philippines

*Corresponding Author: jpquilang@up.edu.ph

ABSTRACT

The molecular phylogeny of the Philippine tigerperches is first described in this study. Eight species were analyzed: these include one endemic species (Leiopotherapon plumbeus); one introduced species (Bidyanus bidyanus); and six native species (Terapon jarbua, Terapon puta, Terapon theraps, Pelates quadrilineatus, Helotes sexlineatus, and Mesopristes cancellatus). Primers were designed to amplify and sequence the 12S rRNA (12S), cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI), and cytochrome b (CytB) genes. The concatenated 12S, COI, and CytB sequences (3529 bp) were used to construct the phylogeny of the tigerperches using Maximum Parsimony (MP), Neighbor Joining (NJ), Maximum Likelihood (ML), and Bayesian Inference (BI) analyses. All four analyses supported the monophyly of tigerperches. Except for the MP tree, all phylogenetic trees showed that Terapon jarbua was the first to have diverged from the rest of the tigerperch species examined. The congeneric T. jarbua, T. puta and T. theraps did not group together, suggesting their non-monophyly. However, SH test on the unconstrained (actual observation) and constrained (the three congeneric species were forced to group together) NJ trees showed no significant difference (p = 0.55). This demonstrated that the monophyly of the genus Terapon remains unclear. Helotes sexlineatus and Pelates quadrilineatus were found to group together based on the three markers, which lends support to assertions in other studies that these taxa are congeneric and should be placed in the same genus Pelates. The immediate sister taxa of B. bidyanus, L. plumbeus, M. cancellatus, and Rhynchopelates oxyrhynchus were not confirmed by the MP, NJ, ML, and BI phylogenetic trees. The inclusion of additional unsampled Philippine species, as well as those from neighboring countries, is recommended to further refine the phylogeny of tigerperches. . . . . read more