Zusammenfassung
Mitochondrial introgression is known as one of the major causes of misleading relationships and mito-nuclear discordance in phylogenetic analyses. It appears to be a quite widespread phenomenon in different animal taxa, with most records among vertebrates and insects. So far, in brachyuran crabs such reports of introgression are relatively infrequent. In the present study, we report such a case ...
Zusammenfassung
Mitochondrial introgression is known as one of the major causes of misleading relationships and mito-nuclear discordance in phylogenetic analyses. It appears to be a quite widespread phenomenon in different animal taxa, with most records among vertebrates and insects. So far, in brachyuran crabs such reports of introgression are relatively infrequent. In the present study, we report such a case occurring among Central and West African mangrove crabs, using a multi-locus genetic approach. Our mito-nuclear phylogenetic comparison suggests a mitochondrial introgression between two sesarmid crab species. Based on our preliminary evidence, it seems that the mitochondrial genome of Guinearma alberti has been transferred to representatives of G. huzardi through introgression. These two species have a wide sympatric distribution along the West African coast and are considered to be congeneric based on their relatively close phylogenetic relationship.