RESEARCH ARTICLE
Review of the Indo-Pacific
Pseudojuloides cerasinus species complex with
a description of two new species (Teleostei: Labridae)
Benjamin C. Victor
Abstract
The Pseudojuloides cerasinus species complex
is a paradigm of the application of DNA taxonomy to
coral-reef fish classification. Once considered a
pan-Indo-Pacific species ranging from South Africa
to the Hawaiian Islands, P. cerasinus has been
divided into three different allopatric species in
the Indian Ocean, based on differences in male-display
color patterns and relatively deep genetic divergences.
In this study, the Pacific Ocean populations are shown
to represent four species: the original type population
in the Hawaiian Islands; a new western Pacific species
Pseudojuloides splendens, ranging from Japan to
Australia and across most of the South Pacific; a
new species Pseudojuloides polynesica, from
French Polynesia and the Line Islands; and Pseudojuloides
pyrius Randall & Randall, 1981, endemic to
the Marquesas Islands. The mtDNA lineages of the complex
diverge from 3.5-11.3% in the sequence of the
mtDNA-barcode marker COI. The species illustrate some
of the more interesting phenomena in the evolution
of species complexes among coral reef fishes: the
species differences are mainly in male-display color
patterns, the degree of phenotypic divergence does
not correlate with the amount of genetic divergence
(the most different-appearing species is one of the
least divergent), and a corollary that the various
genetic lineages must be distinguished to avoid paraphyly
in the taxonomic construct of the species complex.
A neighbor-joining tree and genetic distance matrix
are presented for the seven species of the P. cerasinus
species complex.
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CITATION:
Victor, B.C. (2017) Review
of the Indo-Pacific Pseudojuloides cerasinus
species complex with a description of two new species
(Teleostei: Labridae). Journal of the Ocean Science
Foundation, 29, 11-31.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1068462
publication date: 29 November
2017
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