Morphological and molecular evidence for the recognition ofAllocreadium bursensisn. sp. (Trematoda: Allocreadiidae) from Angora loachOxynoemacheilus angoraefrom Turkey

Abstract

AbstractThis is the first study reporting parasites from the freshwater cyprinidOxynoemacheilus angorae(Steindachner 1897) caught in Nilüfer Stream, Bursa, in the Northwest Anatolian Region of Turkey.Allocreadium bursensisn. sp. was described from the intesine ofO.angoraebased on morphological and genetic characteristics.Allocreadium bursensisn. sp. was differentiated from otherAllocreadiumspp. in having a combination of external (ventral and oral suckers ratio; body length and width and its ratio to forebody) and internal (cirrus pouch position; uterus extension in hindbody; egg size; disposition of anterior border of vitellarium; esophagus length) features. Phylogenetic hypotheses based on maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, Bayesian inferrence, and neighbor joining analyses of sequence data strongly supported the hypothesis thatA. bursensisis nested within the clade ofAllocreadiumspecies hosted by cypriniform fish, and it is more closely related to the Far Eastern speciesA. pseudoisoporum(Primorsky region, Russia) than to the AfricanA. apokryfi.According to genetic p-distances, the taxonomic status of trematodes collected in Turkey was established as independent relative to nine of the validAllocreadiumspp.: 1.8–5.8% in 28S gene and 18.8–22.6% incox1gene. The present study increases the number ofAllocreadiumspecies and their definitive hosts recorded in Turkey and raises the number of Palearctic representatives ofAllocreadiumspp. to 26.