Phylogenetic classification of loaches

[mophir01]

I stumbled across a study recently demonstrating relationships between different Botiidae species and genera based on mtDNA and ribosomal rNA sequencing. The authors found that dwarf loaches sidthimunki and nigrolineata are more closely related to Sinibotia than Yasuhikotakia or Botia...goes to show how little we know about the evolutionary heritage of these fish. Also, I found an interesting paper assessing the divergence of Botiids from Cobitids. The authors argued that there was a doubling in the number of chromosomes that Botias had (polyploid) as opposed to other Cobitids, and that Botias split from Leptobotias and Parabotias near Mongolia/China, and that Botiidae such as Botia, Yasuhikotakia, Ambastaia, Syncrossus, and Chromobotia are the ones that migrated further south into south-eastern asia --> all the way to indonesia.

Just thought I would share some of this interesting research I found while browsing Google Scholar

Mike O.

[Diana]

Very interesting! I can see that there will highly likely be some more name changes as these new ways of IDing things (plants, animals and other things) get going!
I know these changes in relationships are getting well established in plants, but mostly at higher levels, so the family, genus and species rarely change. But there have been some changes in nomenclature.

[NancyD]

Looks like "they" have already changed sids & nigros genus (again)[url]http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24671[url]. I love that DNA studies can help to show the evolution of our fish but hate having to relearn names, lol.