1 reply to this topic

[FirstChAoS]

No, I am not talking about fish in braided streams (though now I think of it I am curious on that). I mean a new (to me) taxonomic method of phylogenetic trees that take hybridization into account.

Since the sunfish are infamous for being able to produce fertile hybrids, I was thinking this kind of taxonomy on sunfish species (and subspecies and regional variants) would be fascinating. Has anyone done a study on this?

[centrarchid]

I have not see it.  I would love to see how Northern Longear comes out of such a mix.  Some Largemouth Bass populations I bet will be intertwined with Spotted bass where hybridization was very recent. How do Bantam Sunfish fall out with balance of Lepomis spp. versus Enneacanthus spp.  I bet $20 that Bantam Sunfish will be classified well within Enneacanthus and be closest to E. obesus.

 

Multiple stocks of each species must be sampled to do effort correctly.  Some of the earlier phylogenies of sunfish require me to smoke some serious dope to accept.