Figure 3: Phylogeographic, morphometric and taxonomic re-evaluation of the river sardine, Mesobola brevianalis (Boulenger, 1908) (Teleostei, Cyprinidae, Chedrini)

The river sardine, Mesobola brevianalis (Boulenger, 1908), is the type species of Mesobola Howes, 1984. Standard phylogenetic analyses of partial sequences of the cytochrome oxidase I gene of individuals from populations across southern Africa that are currently identified as M. brevianalis showed that these populations represent four genetically distinct allopatric lineages. Furthermore, Engraulicypris sardella (Günther, 1868), the type species of Engraulicypris Günther, 1894, was convincingly nested amongst these clades.

Fig.3 Maximum-likelihood phylogram based on partial sequences of the COI gene. Bootstrap support values were attained using a heuristic tree search and 1000 replicates. Numbers following locality names represent SAIAB catalogue numbers and GenBank accession numbers (in brackets). The shaded boxes enclose well-supported clades that were identified as populations of Mesobola brevianalis in the past. The scale bar represents the number of base substitutions per site.