Mosaic or melting pot: The use of monogeneans as a biological tag and magnifying glass to discriminate introduced populations of Nile tilapia in sub-Saharan Africa
Geraerts, M.; Huyse, T.; Barson, M.; Bassirou, H.; Bilong Bilong, C.F.; Bitja Nyom, A.R.; Chocha Manda, A.; Cruz-Laufer, A.J.; Kalombo Kabalika, C.; Kapepula Kasembele, G.; Muterezi Bukinga, F.; Njom, S.; Artois, T.; Vanhove, M.P.M. (2022). Mosaic or melting pot: The use of monogeneans as a biological tag and magnifying glass to discriminate introduced populations of Nile tilapia in sub-Saharan Africa. Genomics (S. Diego Calif.) 114(3): 110328. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ygeno.2022.110328
In: Genomics (San Diego, Calif.). Elsevier: San Diego. ISSN 0888-7543; e-ISSN 1089-8646
The origin of introduced Nile tilapia stocks in sub-Saharan Africa is largely unknown. In this study, the potential of monogeneans as a biological tag and magnifying glass is tested to reveal their hosts' stocking history. The monogenean gill community of different Nile tilapia populations in sub-Saharan Africa was explored, and a phylogeographic analysis was performed based on the mitogenomes of four dactylogyrid species (Cichlidogyrus halli, C. sclerosus, C. thurstonae, and Scutogyrus longicornis). Our results encourage the use of dactylogyrids as biological tags. The magnifying glass hypothesis is only confirmed for C. thurstonae, highlighting the importance of the absence of other potential hosts as prerequisites for a parasite to act as a magnifying glass. With the data generated here, we are the first to extract mitogenomes from individual monogeneans and to perform an upscaled survey of the comparative phylogeography of several monogenean species with unprecedented diagnostic resolution.
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