Two new freshwater blennies from the Eastern Mediterranean basin (Teleostei: Blenniidae).

Two new species of Salariopsis are described from the Eastern Mediterranean basin. Salariopsis burcuae, new species, from the Bay of Antalya east to the Jordan, is characterised by having a short cirrus, usually not overlapping the 9th circum-orbital sensory pore, and many tiny black dots on the cheek not organised in rows or bands. The new species shows a 4.1% K2P sequence divergence on the cytochrome-c-oxidase subunit 1 (COI) barcoding region from its closest relative, S. fluviatilis. Salariopsis renatorum, new species, from the upper Ceyhan drainage and a coastal stream in Arsuz, is distinguished by having an unbranched supraocular tentacle, black lateral line pores, a short snout, and no black dots on the upper part of the flank and on the cheek. It is also distinguished from its geographically closest congener, S. burcuae, by a molecular distance of 8.8% K2P in its COI barcode region.

Phylogeny and phylogeography of the genus Alburnoides (Teleostei, Cyprinidae) in Turkey based on mitochondrial DNA sequences.

Turkey has a rich freshwater biodiversity in terms of Cyprinid genus in respect to its geographical location. To elucidate the phylogeny of the Alburnoides genus, one of these genera, genetic data for the cytochrome b gene (1141 bp) was generated for 445 samples collected at 42 sampling sites across their geographical distribution. A total of 54 mitochondrial haplotypes identified were distrubuted among distinct twelve species that did not share haplotypes with each other. Pairwise sequence divergence among these species range from 1.37% (A. emineae and A. velioglui) and 10.99% (A. manyasensis and A. smyrnae). A new potential species in the River Dirgine that run into the Black Sea Basin was separated from the most closed known species with mean 6.3%. Network analysis and phylogenetic analysis indicated that all haplotypes were clustered into two major clades, which corresponded to twenty-three Alburnoides lineages, with moderate-high bootstrap supports and mutational steps, respectively. Application of a molecular clock to a Bayesian phylogeny indicates that Alburnoides diversified under the paleogeographic conditions such as tectonic uplift and faulting Miocene aged as well as climatic oscillation and sea-level fluctuations during late Miocene-middle Pleistocene. The genetic results of the present study indicated the inter-specific distance of cyt b gene sequences followed the ideal results for species identification and phylogeny of Turkish spirlins.

Discrimination of Cobitis simplicispina Hanko, 1925 and Cobitis turcica Hanko, 1925 populations (Pisces: Ostariophysi: Cobitidae) from Turkey.

The most significant morphometric characters differentiating the specimens of Cobitis simplicispina collected from the Sakarya-Kizilirmak river basins, Cobitis turcica collected from Bagilli and not so far recognized species from Saz Lake were investigated in this work. ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) and canonical discriminant analysis were applied to 44 variables (5 meristic and 39 metric characters derived from 24 measured variables) to show the main differences between three populations. Populations from different localities appeared to be significantly different from each other both in meristic and metric characters. The following characters: standard length/head length (sl/Hc), preorbital length/longitudinal eye diameter (PrO/Oh), standard length/interorbital width (sl/io) and head length/longitudinal eye diameter (Lc/Oh) were important in distinguishing these three populations.

Preliminary data on growth and reproduction of Cobitis simplicispina from Turkey.

Preliminary data on growth and reproduction parameters of Cobitis simplicispina from Darýözü Creek in the Kizilimak basin in Kirsehir-Turkey were presented. The age of the specimens collected during a period between March and June 2002, ranged from 1+ to 4+. The observed maximum total length of males is 91.8 mm, and 97 mm for females. The von Bertalanffy equation for male and female specimens was found to be Lt=93.01(1-exp(-0.408(t+0.821))) and Lt=94.42(1-exp(-0.488(t+0.458))), respectively. The length-weight relationship was expressed as log W= 3.009x SL -5.171 when all specimens were taken into account. The range of absolute fecundity extended from 320 to 2141 eggs and the diameter of ripe eggs varied between 1.00 and 1.25 mm. The gonadosomatic index suggested that spawning took place in April.