Genomic and Phenotypic Delimitation of Species in a Temperate Aquatic Biodiversity Hotspot
Daniel J MacGuigan, Adam Taylor, Ava Ghezelayagh, Julia E Wood, Jeffrey W Simmons, Jon M Mollish, Thomas J Near · 2026
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Description
MacGuigan and colleagues combined genome and body data in 2026 to delimit species in darters, small freshwater fish of southeastern North America. The region is a global hotspot of aquatic diversity where conservation is hampered by unknown species counts. Their approach pairs genome-wide markers with the fin and scale counts long used to tell fish apart. Lets a machine learning method sort body patterns without being told the expected species first.
The test case was the darter group Allohistium, thought to hold two described species, one of them threatened. Phylogenomic, population genetic, and body-shape comparisons all pointed the same way: a third, unrecognized species lineage stood apart, which the team formally describes. The unsupervised body analysis surfaced differences that prior assumptions had masked. The authors present the combined method as a stronger, data-driven way to find hidden diversity before it is lost.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Daniel J MacGuigan, Adam Taylor, Ava Ghezelayagh, Julia E Wood, Jeffrey W Simmons, Jon M Mollish, Thomas J Near |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 68 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |