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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
Phylogenetic analysis of mtDNA sequences suggests revision of humpback dolphin (Sousa spp.) taxonomy is needed
Marine and Freshwater Research, Volume 59, No. 3, Year 2008
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Description
Humpback dolphins (Sousa spp.) have a wide distribution in the tropical Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Oceans and a confused taxonomy. Morphological assessments suggest three species groupings - Sousa teuszii (eastern Atlantic), Sousa plumbea (western Indo-Pacific), and Sousa chinensis (eastern Indo-Pacific) - but most taxonomies recognise only two species - S. chinensis (Indo-Pacific), and S. teuszii (Atlantic). To investigate phylogenetic relationships, mitochondrial DNA control region sequences (338 base pairs) from 72 Sousa representing three populations in the Indo-Pacific (South Africa: S. plumbea, n = 23; China: S. chinensis, n = 19; and Australia: S. chinensis, n = 28), and S. teuszii in the Atlantic (Mauritania, n = 2) were generated. All three Indo-Pacific populations formed robust, monophyletic clades with high bootstrap (BS) and Bayesian posterior probability (BPP) scores. Surprisingly, humpback dolphins from South Africa and China formed a strongly-supported clade with the Atlantic S. teuszii (BS 63%, BPP 0.92) to the exclusion of animals from Australia. Genetic divergence between animals from China and Australia (D A = 8.4% ± 2.47%) was greater than between China and South Africa (DA = 5.1% ± 1.80%). These results strongly suggest that Australian humpback dolphins are not S. chinensis but may represent a distinct species in their own right. © CSIRO 2008.
Authors & Co-Authors
Frère, Céline H.
Australia, Sydney
Unsw Sydney
Hale, Peter T.
Australia, Brisbane
The University of Queensland
Porter, Lindsay
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
World Wide Fund for Nature
Cockcroft, Victor G.
South Africa
Centre for Dolphin Studies
Dalebout, M. L.
Australia, Sydney
Unsw Sydney
Statistics
Citations: 49
Authors: 5
Affiliations: 4
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1071/MF07120
Research Areas
Genetics And Genomics
Study Locations
Mauritania
South Africa