Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Genetic Identification of the Northeastern Atlantic Spiny Spider Crab as Maja Brachydactyla Balss, 1922

Genetic Identification of the Northeastern Atlantic Spiny Spider Crab as Maja Brachydactyla... The northeastern Atlantic spiny spider crab occurs from the British Islands to Senegal, where it is an important fishery resource. From morphological characters this crab has recently been proposed as a distinct species, Maja brachydactyla , although for commercial purposes it is still considered the same species as its Mediterranean congener M. squinado . We have studied variation at two mitochondrial genes in several crab populations from the Atlantic (putatively M. brachydactyla ) and Mediterranean ( M. squinado and M. crispata ) basins, in order to clarify the taxonomic status of this crab in the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean regions. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that each of these three taxa forms a distinct and well-defined clade. While the divergence within each taxon was 0% for 16S and 0-0.3% for COI, divergence between taxa was 0.6-2.5% for 16S and 5.3-8.7% for COI; values that are in the range of the differences observed between other crustacean species. These results confirm the genetic distinctiveness of each taxa and support their designation as different species. Therefore, the Atlantic spider crab should be referred as M. brachydactyla , a fact that should be taken into account for conservation and commercial purposes. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Crustacean Biology Brill

Genetic Identification of the Northeastern Atlantic Spiny Spider Crab as Maja Brachydactyla Balss, 1922

Download PDF
6 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/genetic-identification-of-the-northeastern-atlantic-spiny-spider-crab-J7OMFNoAlA

References (46)

Copyright
The Crustacean Society
Subject
Systematics and Biogeography:
ISSN
0278-0372
eISSN
1937-240X
DOI
10.1651/07-2875R.1
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The northeastern Atlantic spiny spider crab occurs from the British Islands to Senegal, where it is an important fishery resource. From morphological characters this crab has recently been proposed as a distinct species, Maja brachydactyla , although for commercial purposes it is still considered the same species as its Mediterranean congener M. squinado . We have studied variation at two mitochondrial genes in several crab populations from the Atlantic (putatively M. brachydactyla ) and Mediterranean ( M. squinado and M. crispata ) basins, in order to clarify the taxonomic status of this crab in the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean regions. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that each of these three taxa forms a distinct and well-defined clade. While the divergence within each taxon was 0% for 16S and 0-0.3% for COI, divergence between taxa was 0.6-2.5% for 16S and 5.3-8.7% for COI; values that are in the range of the differences observed between other crustacean species. These results confirm the genetic distinctiveness of each taxa and support their designation as different species. Therefore, the Atlantic spider crab should be referred as M. brachydactyla , a fact that should be taken into account for conservation and commercial purposes.

Journal

Journal of Crustacean Biology – Brill

Published: Feb 1, 2008

Keywords: mtDNA; molecular systematics; Maja brachydactyla; spider crabs

There are no references for this article.