Methods using environmental nucleic acids have become highly effective for monitoring aquatic biodiversity, with an array of suitable use cases, including metrics for fisheries assessment. Traditional methods for assessing fish populations often rely on invasive techniques with limited spatial and temporal coverage. Environmental DNA (eDNA) has revolutionised biomonitoring assessments by facilitating species detection and abun...

Freshwater salinization is an emerging threat impacting approximately one‐third of the world's freshwater bodies. However, the salinity tolerance of many inland fishes remains understudied, despite being a crucial factor in determining species distributions and fitness. We updated and analysed a comprehensive global database of experimental salinity tolerance, compiled from 128 sources, to investigate geographical and taxonomi...

To date, the phylogeny of Alburnus , one of the most speciose western Palearctic freshwater fish genera, remains unresolved and its monophyly questioned. Here, we present a taxon-dense phylogeny of the genus and related genera, based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data. A special focus is put on relationships between the Peri-Adriatic species. Our analyses confirmed the paraphyly of Alburnus with the retrieval of Le...

Genomic data has revealed hybridisation is common in nature. Highly divergent allopatric species are often overlooked in our efforts to characterise the prevalence and consequences of hybridisation in natural systems, presumably because they are viewed as less likely to hybridise. Yet, such species are models to investigate later stages of the speciation continuum. Here, we study such a system—the Iberian chubs ( Squalius spp....

The evolutionary potential of a species directly impacts its ability to survive in fluctuating environments. A fundamental goal in wildlife conservation is enhancing this potential since anthropogenic pressures and rapid climate change are shifting environments at an alarming rate. One way to increase a species’ adaptive potential is through the delineation of management units based on population genomic analyses. Such units c...

Biodiversity conservation entails not only the preservation of specific taxa but also genetic diversity. Despite the crucial role of molecular data in freshwater fish conservation management, there is a scarcity of information regarding the genetic diversity of Luciobarbus Heckel, 1843 (Actinopterygii, Cyprinidae) populations in the Aral system. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to provide genetic information on two...

We analyzed two morpho-species, Astyanax aeneus and Astyanax caballeroi , coexisting in Lake Catemaco, with ecological differences previously associated with different trophic niches. While A. aeneus is a widely distributed species, A. caballeroi is endemic to Lake Catemaco. Due to the contrasting morphology between these two sympatric species, they were originally assigned to different genera, but little is known about their...

Background The Spanish toothcarp ( Aphanius iberus Valenciennes, 1846) is a small fish endemic to the eastern coastline of the Iberian Peninsula and is currently listed as “Endangered” (category IUCN: EN). It mainly inhabits brackish waters which can exhibit large fluctuations in temperature and salinity throughout the year. The genetics of A. iberus are not well-known since most studies have only evaluated the genetic structu...

Central Mexico is characterized by a complex topography that is the result of historic and contemporary tectonic and climatic factors. These events have influenced the evolutionary history of numerous freshwater fishes in the region. Nonetheless, recent studies have shown that life‐history traits and ecological characteristics of species may influence dispersal capabilities and the degree of genetic connectivity. Goodea (Cypri...

Inferring the evolutionary history of a group of species can be challenging given the many factors involved. In recent years, the increased availability of sequences of multiple genes per species has spurred the development of new methodologies to analyse multilocus data sets. Two approaches that analyse such data are concatenated supermatrix and coalescent‐based species‐tree analyses. In this study, we used both of these meth...

Aim The current configuration of the Mediterranean Basin is the result of a complex geological history that promoted a drastic change of biological diversity, richness and distribution of freshwater organisms. Currently cyprinids of the genus Luciobarbus are the only representative of primary freshwater fishes widely distributed in the Mediterranean Basin, showing its highest diversity in the Western Mediterranean. Within this...