The Causes of Morphological and Genetic Heterogeneity in the White Fish Coregonus lavaretus Sensu Lato from the Arctic Part of the Lena River Basin

• Published in: Russian journal of genetics 2023-11, Vol.59 (11), p.1141-1157
• Main Authors: Bochkarev, N. A., Sendek, D. S., Zuykova, E. I., Pestryakova, L. A., Ushnitskya, L. A., Zakharov, E. S., Everstova, A. A., Zakharova, N. N., Politov, D. V.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal Genetics; Animal Genetics and Genomics; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Human Genetics; Microbial Genetics and Genomics
• ISSN: 1022-7954; 1608-3369
• DOI: 10.1134/S1022795423110030

The results of morphological and genetic analysis of populations/forms/species of the pidschian -like whitefishes from the middle and lower streams of the Lena River and adjacent rivers are presented. There are good grounds to believe that despite considerable heterogeneity of whitefishes in Siberia, a small number of stable forms/species live in the waterbodies of the Siberian Arctic. These are the East Siberian whitefish ( C. lavaretus pidschian n. brachymystax ), glacial—plain whitefish ( C. lavaretus pidschian n. glacialis ) and Yukagir whitefish ( C. lavaretus pidschian n. jucagiricus ), as well as their hybrid populations. The glacial—plain whitefish and its derivatives differ from the East Siberian whitefish in plastic traits but they are identical in meristic ones. Molecular genetic studies showed that, in most cases, glacial—plain whitefish formed vast loosely connected haplotype networks, which corresponded to the long-term population existence in favorable conditions. Haplotypes of the East Siberian whitefish are closely related to the haplotypes of whitefish forms/species from the waterbodies of Southern Siberia, characterized by radial structure of median-joining network. Such network structure indicates a recent decline in the East Siberian whitefish numbers with subsequent expansion, which is directly associated with the Quaternary glaciation events.