Suchergebnisse

The evolutionary history of North Atlantic Sebastes redfishes was reconstructed as a result of studying the mitochondrial DNA D-loop sequences of Sebastes redfishes inhabiting the North Atlantic and the Arctic Oceans. It was shown, that speciation of these redfishes occurred in several stages. During the first stage, the ancestor of Norway redfish (S. viviparus) diverged from the common ancestor species in the process of allopatric speciation. Ancestor of Acadian redfish (S. fasciatus) diverged from the common ancestor as it evolved. Budding speciation in the species that would later evolve into golden redfish (S. norvegicus) resulted in emergence of beaked redfish (S. mentella). Paleoclimatic events seem to have played the key role in species divergence as they caused habitat fragmentation allowing the isolated groups to become genetically distinct in the meantime. The conducted analysis of Sebastes redfishes speciation brings into question the generality of widely accepted views on fish sympatric speciation. It also serves as an argument against the molecular clock hypothesis.