A Ploidy Difference Represents an Impassable Barrier for Hybridisation in Animals. Is There an Exception among Botiid Loaches (Teleostei: Botiidae)?

ABSTRACT: One of the most efficient mechanisms to keep animal lineages separate is a difference in ploidy level (number of whole genome copies), since hybrid offspring from parents with different ploidy level are functionally sterile. In the freshwater fish family Botiidae, ploidy difference has been held responsible for the separation of its two subfamilies, the evolutionary tetraploid Botiinae and the diploid Leptobotiinae. Diploid and tetraploid species coexist in the upper Yangtze, the Pearl River and the Red River basins in China. Interestingly, the species 'Botia' zebra from the Pearl River basin combines a number of morphological characters that otherwise are found in the diploid genus Leptobotia with morphological characters of the tetraploid genus Sinibotia, therefore the aim of the present

SUBMITTER: Bohlen J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4956246 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature