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Morphometric and allozyme variation in the African catfishes Clarias gariepinus and C. anguillaris
Author(s) -
Rog X.,
Teugels G. G.,
Guyomard R.,
Galbusera P.,
Andriamanga M.,
Volckaert F.,
Agnèse J. F.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of fish biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.672
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1095-8649
pISSN - 0022-1112
DOI - 10.1111/j.1095-8649.1998.tb00120.x
Subject(s) - biology , clarias gariepinus , variation (astronomy) , zoology , fishery , fish <actinopterygii> , ecology , catfish , physics , astrophysics
This study investigated morphological characters and electrophoretic polymorphism at 25 protein loci in nine wild populations of the African clariid catfish Clarias gariepinus and seven wild populations of C. anguillaris. Two other clariid species, Clarias albopunctatus and Heterobranchus longifilis , were used as outgroups in the allozyme study. Morphometric and allozyme data are congruent for the Nilo‐Sudanian populations of C. gariepinus and C. anguillaris. Both approaches also distinguished two groups amongst the C. gariepinus populations, one containing Nilo‐Sudanian populations and the other including Lake Victoria and southern African populations. However, allozyme data suggest that C. gariepinus is not a monophyletic group and show that C. albopunctatus is more divergent from C. gariepinus and C. anguillaris than it is from H. longifilis , stressing the need for a revision of clariid systematics. The variation observed in C. gariepinus is discussed in terms of palaeogeographical events and its use in aquaculture.