Allopatric speciation of Crassostrea oysters based on molecular evolutionary mitochondrial DNA analysis
2005
Aranishi, F.(Miyazaki Univ. (Japan). Faculty of Agriculture) | Okimoto, T. | Iidzuka, Y. | Kudo, K. | Hirano, T. | Ohkubo, M.
Oysters consist of more than 100 living species found everywhere in the world except in the north and south poles, and are now the most consumed bivalves worldwide. Among all the cultured aquatic animals, the global production of cultured cupped oysters belonging to the genus Crassostrea ranked first in 1996. There are nine commercially important Crassostrea species, seven of which naturally occur in East Asia, whereas each one species is distributed in Europe and North America. Based on this unique geographical distribution of Crassostrea oysters, the present study was undertaken to investigate their evolutionary speciation by mitochondrial DNA analysis using the cytochrome oxidase c subunit I gene. Both the genetic distance and minimum evolution phylogenetic tree analyses verified the allopatric speciation of C. virginica distributed in North America and seven Crassostrea species in East Asia. In addition, results obtained from these analyses also indicated the parapatric speciation of C. hongkongensis and C. belcheri around the Leizhou Peninsula in South China. Crassostrea oysters have so far been subjected to both the allopatric speciation and parapatric speciation during their evolutionary history.
Показать больше [+] Меньше [-]