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Cryptic species within the commercially most important lobster in the tropical Atlantic, the spiny lobster Panulirus argus

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Abstract

Panulirus argus (Latreille in Ann Mus Hist Nat Paris 3:388–395, 1804) is the lobster of greatest economic importance throughout its distribution. In this study, mitochondrial (Cytochrome Oxidase I and 16S ribosomal genes) and nuclear (Adenine Nucleotide Transporter gene) sequences were used to evaluate the taxonomic status of P. argus sampled from five sites in the Caribbean Sea and nine sites in the Southwest Atlantic. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that lobsters from the two regions form two monophyletic groups with a molecular divergence similar to that observed between distinct congeneric lobster species and much larger than that found between conspecific lobster populations. Therefore, the Caribbean and the Southwest Atlantic lobster populations originally attributed to P. argus belong to different species, with an estimated time of isolation of around 16 Million years. An important consequence of these findings is that the fisheries of spiny lobsters from the Caribbean and the Southwest Atlantic species must be managed separately.

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Acknowledgments

We thank D. Almeida, E. Araujo, L. Barbosa, P. Coelho Filho, H. Cunha, M.C.O. Matos, N. Leite Jr., F. Magalhães, R. Monteiro, M.C. Ostrowski, P. Paiva, A. Reis, G. Rey, E. Rios, E. Routledge, and S. Ribeiro for help with sample collections. We also thank S.K. Sarver and J. Gusmão for suggestions on an early version of the manuscript and C. Schrago for helping with the Bayesian divergence time analysis. This paper was made possible by grants from the Brazilian Ministries for Fisheries and Aquaculture (MPA) and Science, Technology and Inovation (MCTI), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), and Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ). This work is part of the MSc thesis of JLT.

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  1. Laboratório de Biodiversidade Molecular, Departamento de Genética, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 21941-590, Brazil

    Julia L. Tourinho, Antonio M. Solé-Cava & Cristiano Lazoski

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  1. Julia L. Tourinho
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  2. Antonio M. Solé-Cava
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  3. Cristiano Lazoski
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Correspondence to Cristiano Lazoski.

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Communicated by M. I. Taylor.

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Tourinho, J.L., Solé-Cava, A.M. & Lazoski, C. Cryptic species within the commercially most important lobster in the tropical Atlantic, the spiny lobster Panulirus argus . Mar Biol 159, 1897–1906 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-012-1977-7

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