New work on catfish families (coming out)

[lfinley58]

Hello all,

There is a new major work on the families of catfishes coming out shortly. It is titled:
"A phylogenetic analysis of the major groups of catfishes (Teleostei:Siluriformes) using rag1 and rag2 nuclear gen sequences." The authors are John P. Sullivan, John G. Lundberg and Michael Hardman. The paper is to be published in the journal "Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution". I don't have an issue number, but it should be available shortly. I thank the senior author for providing me with a pre-publication copy.

The paper is loaded with information. A few chosen tid-bits from it are below:
1. The authors recognize the family Horabagridae (which has been suggested previously). The family is noted to consist of the genera Horabagrus, Pseudeutropius and Platytropius and have a combined census of 17 species.
2. The families Pimelodidae, Heptapteridae and Pseudopimelodidae are confirmed. Lately there have been some thoughts in contradiction to this structure.
3. The family Heteropneustidae is confirmed.
4. On a genus level the authors find no reason to have two genera in the family Diplomystidae. They do not recognize Olivaichthys and place all species in the genus Diplomystes.
5. Bagridae is noted to be monophyletic only if the genus Rita is excluded. Could this be like the case of the South American (formerly pimelodid) genus Conorhynchos which is now considered incertae sedis (of uncertain position) and will probably end up in a family of its own?
6. Schilbidae may be in for some work as at least two groups within it are not considered to be keeping with Schilbidae sensu stricto (the African species and a group consisting of the Asian genera Ailia and Laides).
7. The authors note that they follow the spelling of Schilbidae, not Schilbeidae.


The above can only be considered as skiming the surface of material presented in the paper. But it will hopefully give you an idea of things done and potentially things to come. There are a lot of family matters that remain unresolved, so there will be much more to come in the future as other authors expand on (or disagree) with this work.

Lee[/b][/i]

[lfinley58]

My apology for messing up the title of the article (so much for my proof reading). The latter part of it should read "...gene sequences." Sorry.

Lee

[Silurus]

This work is now published.

Sullivan, JP, JG Lundberg & M Hardman, 2006. A phylogenetic analysis of the major groups of catfishes (Teleostei: Siluriformes) using rag1 and rag2 nuclear gene sequence. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 41: 636â??662.

Abstract

Higher-level relationships among catfishes were investigated by parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian analyses of two nuclear genes across 110 catfish species representing 36 of 37 families and Conorhynchos (family incertae sedis). Analysis of 3660 aligned base pairs from the rag1 and rag2 genes confirms monophyly of Siluriformes, of most siluriform families and of a number of multifamily groups, some recognized, some novel. South American Loricarioidei are recovered as the sistergroup to other catfishes which are divided into Diplomystidae and Siluroidei. This result contrasts with the prevailing hypothesis that Diplomystidae is the sister to all other catfishes. Monophyly of Siluroidei is supported by rag data including a unique three-codon deletion from rag1. Deep within Siluroidei are 12 large, strongly supported groups with poorly resolved interrelationships. Five are single families: Cetopsidae, Plotosidae, Chacidae, Siluridae and Pangasiidae. Four others are monophyletic taxa ranked here as superfamilies: Clarioidea (Clariidae, Heteropneustidae), Arioidea (Ariidae, Anchariidae), Pimelodoidea (Pimelodidae, Pseudopimelodidae, Heptapteridae, Conorhynchos), Ictaluroidea (Ictaluridae, Cranoglanididae). South American Doradoidea (Doradidae, Auchenipteridae) and Aspredinidae are a sistergroup pair. Sisoroidea (without Aspredinidae), Ailia + Laides, Horabagridae, and Bagridae (without Rita) form a large, predominantly Asian clade, â??Big Asia.â?

[Jools]

Has anyone spotted any usage of Horabagridae as yet?

Jools

[The.Dark.One]

Has anyone got a pdf of this paper? If so, could they email it to me please at:

steven.grant1@virgin.net

[Suckermouth]

Has anyone spotted any usage of Horabagridae as yet?

Jools

Since this post, Google Scholar tells me "Horabagridae" has been used in two other papers, one of them being another paper with Sullivan as primary author.