New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts

---

Muscle myogens In the New Zealand Galaxiidae C. P. Mitchell* and D. Scott

C. P. MITCHELL*

D. SCOTT

Zoology Department, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

Abstract The muscle myogen proteins of 10 species of the family Galaxiidae exhibited a high degree of species specificity when separated by starch gel electrophoresis. Non-diadromous, nonlacustrine species had some variation in the proteins present, while diadromous and lacustrine species, except for Galaxias maculatus, had remarkably uniform muscle myogen electropherograms. The variation can be explained by polymorphism and mosaic evolution of isolated freshwater populations. It was found that previously erected specific and generic categories, except for G. vulgaris, are clearly defined by differences in muscle protein. The standardised electropherogram types obtained were subjected to cluster analysis using both squared Euclidean distance and the complement of Jacard's coefficient with average sorting strategy. A principal component analysis was also carried out. The first two components of the principal component analysis widely spaced the three genera included in this study (Salrno, Galaxias, and Neochanna), with N. burrowsius occupying an intermediate position between Galaxias and Neochanna. Previous workers have considered this species to be a connecting link between the two genera. The dendrogram produced by using squared Euclidean distance (which included all available information) first clustered the types into Salmoniidae and Galaxiidae. The latter were split into the genus Neochanna and the genus Galaxias which was then subdivided into stout-bodied species (G. argenleus and G. jasciatus) and slenderbodied species. G. brevipinnis and G. vulgaris types were further separated from the three alpine Galaxias species and G. maculatus. The substantial agreement of these results with previous taxonomic efforts indicates that electrophoretic data can be a valid taxonomic tool.

New Zealand Journal of Marine & Freshwater Research, 1979, 13(2): 285-294.
Received 7 June 1978; revision received 5 April 1979

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (955K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

---

This year's abstracts | Journal home page | All abstracts | Publishing home page