Sistemática filogenética dos bagres Auchenipteridae (Ostariophysi: Siluriformes) : uma abordagem combinando dados morfológicos e moleculares.

Abstract

The Auchenipteridae have an extensive and confusing taxonomic and phylogenetic history. Several studies developed since 1766 involving descriptions of species generated controversial results about the composition of the family and their interrelationships. The weakness of the systematic knowledge and diversity of the family hinders the understanding about the evolutionary history since the informative potential of morphology, molecules and biogeography was not yet fully explored. A comprehensive and densely sampled phylogenetic study of the species relationships of the Auchenipteridae, a Neotropical family of inseminating catfishes, is here documented based on combined datasets, morphological and molecular. The present study aimed to include most species of Auchenipteridae (109 species), as well as several members of other siluriform families representing the outgroup (28 species comprising Mochokidae, Aspredinidae, Doradidae, Ariidae, Pimelodidae, Cetopsidae, and Diplomystidae) to embrace the greater diversity of forms existing within Siluriformes, providing a robust comparison between the taxa and providing therefore a series of information from different sources including morphology (261 characters) and molecular data (2814 characters based on four genes: COI, 16S, RAG2, and MyH6). The parsimony analysis based on combined data yielded 1691 maximally parsimonious trees and the strict consensus corroborated the monophyly of the superfamily Doradoidea, the family Auchenipteridae and its two subfamilies, Centromochlinae and Auchenipterinae as well. The new classificatory proposal also raises the number of tribes within Auchenipteridae from two to nine, evidencing the following major groups within Auchenipterinae: Liosomadoradini, Trachelyopterini, Asterophysini, Auchenipterini, and Ageneiosini; and in Centromochlinae: Gelanoglanini, Gephyromochlini, Centromochlini, and Glanidini. Additionally, most of auchenipterid genera were recovered as monophyletic, except for Centromochlus and Tatia. Centromochlus is restricted to only three species while Tatia is recovered as the most specious centromochline genus including the currently Centromochlus simplex, C. reticulatus and Pseudotatia parva, herein reallocated. To address the paraphyly of Centromochlus and Tatia, two new genera of Centromochlinae were proposed and a nomenclatural reorganization of the species in these genera was conducted. Furthermore, Glanidium and Trachycorystes resulted as paraphyletic, and a new combination for Glanidium leopardum, resurrecting Gephyromochlus, to allocate this taxa and a new genus of Auchenipterinae to allocate Trachycorystes menezesi were proposed. Notwithstanding, Ageneiosus was recovered as paraphyletic since Ageneiosus militaris was recovered as sister group to Ageneiosus and Tympanopleura. The paraphyly of Ageneiosus seems to be an artifact of morphological missing data for A. militaris and until these data are included in the analysis to readily test the position of this species, both genera are maintained as valid. A synapomorphy list and the diagnosis for each clade are presented under a new classification proposal. Furthermore, the interrelationship and monophyly of the genera and major groups are discussed and compared to previous propositions.