Taxonomic statue of Po. Iranicus based on COI cytochrome gene

Abstract

The family Gobiidae possesses 42 species in the Iranian inland waters comprising about 10% of its freshwater fish fauna. This family has 15 genus in Iran that the genus Ponticola is most diverse one. Morphological variation of the members of the genus Ponticola, make it difficult their identification. Recently a new species i.e. Po. Iranicus (Vasil′eva et al., 2015) based on the morphological characters from the Bijar, Gisum and Totakabon rivers, Caspian Sea basin of Iran. Therefore this study aimed to verify the validity of this species based on COI gene and its
phylogenetic position. For this purpose, 7 specimens per river were collected different rivers of the Caspian Sea basin. Then their DNA were extracted by phenol-chloroform method, and the cytochrome COI gene was amplified during the PCR process and sequenced after purification. The results showed that Po. Iranicus is a valid species, as a sister species of the Po. Syrman with about 3.0% K2P genetic distance.