A preliminary genetic distinctness of four Coilia fishes (Clupeiformes: Engraulidae) inferred from mitochondrial DNA sequences

In order to understand the genetic distinctness between four Coilia fishes, i.e. (C. ectenes, C. e. taihuensis, C. mystus, and C. grayii) the combined cytochrome b (cytb), 12S rRNA and 16S rRNA gene sequences were obtained and analysed. The results are as follows: (1) Neighbour-joining (NJ) and maximum parsimony (MP) trees were built with 1000 bootstrap replicates. They supported that Coilia fishes consisted of two clades: C. grayii form a monophyletic group, and the remaining samples form the other monophyletic group; (2) The topological differences between the NJ tree and the MP tree are checked by Templeton test, indicating that their differences are insignificant (P > 0.05); and (3) Kimura two-parameter distances between the samples of C. ectenes, C. e. taihuensis, and C. mystus all do not exceed 1.6%, and most of them are between 0 and 0.9%. Coilia ectenes, C. e. taihuensis, and C. mystus are closely related and their differences may be under subspecies.