Mediterranean International Conference on Research in Applied Sciences, 22 - 24 April 2022, pp.134-135
In this study, the phylogeny of the Spirlins Alburnoides genus distributed in Turkish
freshwaters was determined by analyzing the mitochondrial 16S rRNA (1688 bp) gene
sequences of 682 individuals representing 50 populations of 12 species throughout their
geographic distribution. K2P-based genetic distances between Alburnoides species range from
0.2% (A. velioglu & A. emineae) to 5.4% (A. fasciatus & A. symrnae). The highest
intraspecific genetic diversity was determined for A. tzanevi, which has the widest geographic
distribution with 0.5%. The number of species-specific SNPs ranged from 2 (A. eichwaldii) to
22 (A. symrnae), except for A. emineae and A. velioglui. Haplotype network and phylogenetic
analyzes of sixty-six 16S rRNA haplotypes identified for Alburnoides species (neighbor
joining and maximum likelihood) resulted in nearly similar tree topologies with medium/high
confidence values that genetically supported 11 of 12 morphological species. Therefore, the
phylogenetic analyzes performed did not support the species differentiation/existence of A.
velioglu and A. emineae and indicated the necessity of reconsidering the taxonomic status of
these species. This study has contributed to our understanding of the taxonomic status of the Alburnoides
genus in Turkish freshwaters, which has the potential to contain a high rate of endemic
species. As a result, species-genetic identification was performed successfully based on the
data obtained by molecular methods and the limits of the distribution areas of the species were
determined to a large extent.