“Population Genetics of Bowfins (Amiidae) Across the Laurentian Great Lakes and Carolinas”

The Bowfin, Amia calva Linneaus, 1766, is a common North American fish; today it is considered the only extant member of the order Amiiformes. By 1870, however, thirteen species of Bowfin had been described across central and eastern North America. That presumptive diversity was synonymized into a single species, A. calva, by Jordan and Evermann in 1896, without analysis or rationale. Their monotypy hypothesis has been widely accepted but never scientifically validated. Our objective is to test that monotypy hypothesis by analyzing variation in the barcode gene (Cythochrome Oxidase I) for Bowfin populations from the Carolinas and Laurentian Great Lakes. In particular, we focus on samples from near Charleston, SC (type locality of A. calva), and from Georgian Bay, ON (type locality of the second described species A. ocellicauda Todd, in Richardson, 1837). We computed a maximum likelihood phylogeny from the COI sequences, using Spotted and Alligator Gar as outgroups. Results revealed two distinct clades representing Bowfin from the Carolinas and the Great Lakes region (strong boot strap support of 81, but overall divergence of about 1%); there was added complexity within each region that we are continuing to evaluate.