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First report on the phylogenetic relationship between European and Asian populations of the Astacus leptodactylus species complex

The taxonomy of narrow-clawed crayfi sh (Astacus leptodactylus Eschscholtz, 1823 species complex) is not yet resolved and is still in a state of flux. Results of recent morphological characteristics comparative analyses have shown that Asian populations of narrow-clawed crayfish differ significantly from European populations. The aim of this research was to study phylogenetic relationship between European (Croatia, Bulgaria, Poland, Turkey) and Asian (Armenia, Russia) populations of narrow-clawed crayfish. Mitochondrial 16S rRNA and COI genes were partially sequenced from 37 crayfish, sampled from seven localities. Phylogenetic relationships were reconstructed using different methods of phylogenetic inference on each gene region independently as well as on a concatenated data set. A total of nine different 16S rRNA and 30 COI haplotypes were obtained. The concatenated data set included 21 combined 16S/COI haplotypes. All three implemented criteria of phylogenetic reconstruction (MP, ML and BA) yielded congruent topologies, characterised by the presence of two main geographically localized phylogroups, corresponding to Asian and European populations, separated by pronounced genetic gap. The observed genetic divergence value between European and Asian narrow-clawed crayfish phylogroups ranged from 3.33% to 4.57% for 16S gene and from 4.22% to 8.25% for COI gene. Obtained results on phylogeny corroborate with results of morphological analyses, and indicate the presence of distinct evolutionary lineages within A. leptodactylus sp. complex.

narrow-clawed crayfish; COI; 16S; phylogeny

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