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MBE Advance Access originally published online on December 12, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2009 26(3):623-629; doi:10.1093/molbev/msn283
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Research Articles

Explosive Speciation of Takifugu: Another Use of Fugu as a Model System for Evolutionary Biology

Yusuke Yamanoue*, Masaki Miya{dagger}, Keiichi Matsuura{ddagger}, Seita Miyazawa§, Naofumi Tsukamoto§, Hiroyuki Doi||, Hiroshi Takahashi, Kohji Mabuchi#, Mutsumi Nishida# and Harumi Sakai**

* Department of Aquatic Bioscience, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
{dagger} Department of Zoology, Natural History Museum and Institute, Chiba, Japan
{ddagger} Collection Center, National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo, Japan
§ Division of Biological Science, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
|| Shimonoseki Marine Science Museum "Kaikyokan," Shimonoseki Academy of Marine Science, Yamaguchi, Japan
Department of Applied Aquabiology, National Fisheries University, Yamaguchi, Japan
# Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
** Graduate School of Fisheries Science, National Fisheries University, Yamaguchi, Japan

E-mail: ayyamano{at}mail.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp.

Accepted for publication December 8, 2008.

Although the fugu Takifugu rubripes has attracted attention as a model organism for genomic studies because of its compact genome, it is not generally appreciated that there are approximately 25 closely related species with limited distributions in the waters of East Asia. We performed molecular phylogenetic analyses and constructed a time tree using whole mitochondrial genome sequences from 15 Takifugu species together with 10 outgroups to examine patterns of diversification. The resultant time tree showed that the modern Takifugu species underwent explosive speciation during the Pliocene 1.8–5.3 Ma, which is comparable with that of the Malawi cichlids and tropheine cichlids in Lake Tanganyika. Considering their limited distributions and remarkable variations in coloration, morphology, and behavior, the results of the present study strongly suggest that Takifugu species are strong candidates as a model system for evolutionary studies of speciation mechanisms in marine environments where few such organisms are available.

Key Words: model organism • model system • partitioned ML analysis • Tetraodontidae • Tetraodontiformes • whole mitochondrial genome

Jody Hey, Associate Editor


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