Evolutionary History and Taxonomic Reappraisal of Coral Reef Rabbitfishes (Siganidae): Patterns of Lineage Diversification and Speciation.

ABSTRACT: Rabbitfish (Siganidae) are coral reef fish that are distributed across diverse habitats that include estuaries, mangroves, reefs, and even seaweed mats. Given their ecological diversity and natural widespread distributions across the Indo-Pacific region, we were interested to investigate the evolutionary history of this group and patterns of divergence that have contributed to their present-day distributions. In the present study, samples were collected from the South China Sea to study taxonomic and phylogenetic relationships, and divergence times. We investigated the taxonomic relationships among modern rabbitfish species, reconstructed their molecular phylogeny, and estimated divergence times among selected lineages based on a fragment of the mtDNA cytochrome oxidase I (COI) and sequenc

SUBMITTER: Zolkaply SZ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8615046 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature