Many branches, one root: First evidence for a monophyly of the morphologically highly diverse goldfish (Carassius auratus)

Goldfish is one of the most important pet and laboratory fishes of the world that is nowadays pan-globally distributed anti well known to everybody. Despite the wide phenotypic variability of the ornamental forms, all goldfish are traditionally considered to be Carassius auratus, a species that developed via domestication from the Silver Prussian carp, C gibelio. However, the postulated monophyly of goldfish has never been proven, and multiple domestication events may have occurred. Here we present the results of a reconstructed genealogy of 49 individuals of the genus Carassius based on unique sequences of mitochondrial gene cytochrome b. The samples originated from different parts of Eurasia and include different varieties of domesticated goldfish as well as feral populations and specimens of other representatives of the genus Carassius. The results indicate that goldfish indeed forms a monophyletic lineage and point on a single domestication event as source of all goldfish varieties. However, the monophyletic goldfish lineage was not nested within the samples of C. gibelio, but formed a sister lineage. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.