Abstract

Lamprologine cichlids include nearly 100 species from Lake Tanganyika, but only nine are known from the Congo River, including Lamprologus lethops, the only known blind cichlid. Little is known about its natural history. We characterized the complete mitochondrial genomes of L. lethops and seven related riverine species to infer evolutionary relationships. Genomes were similar in size and structure. Riverine Lamprologus formed two non-sister mitochondrial lineages more closely related to Lake Tanganyika lamprologines than to each other, suggesting past introgression or incomplete lineage sorting. Lamprologus lethops was sister to lower Congo River species. Broader taxonomic and genomic sampling is needed.

Details

Title
Novel complete mitochondrial genomes of eight riverine Lamprologus species (Actinopterygii, Cichlidae) suggest in-situ speciation of the blind cichlid L. lethops in the lower Congo River
Author
Jimenez, Sebastian M 1 ; Kurata, Naoko P 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Stiassny, Melanie L J 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Alter, S Elizabeth 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Chakrabarty, Prosanta 5   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Alda, Fernando 6   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA 
 The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, New York, USA; Department of Ichthyology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York, USA 
 Department of Ichthyology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York, USA; The Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York, USA 
 Department of Ichthyology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York, USA; Department of Biology and Chemistry, California State University Monterey Bay, Seaside, California, USA 
 Department of Ichthyology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York, USA; Museum of Natural Science and Department of Biological Science, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA 
 Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA; SimCenter: Center for Excellence in Applied Computational Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA; Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC; CSIC-UCLM-JCCM), Ciudad Real, Spain 
Pages
595-601
Publication year
2025
Publication date
Jul 2025
Publisher
Taylor & Francis Ltd.
e-ISSN
23802359
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3224790643
Copyright
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.