Study on phylogenetic status of Hari barbel Luciobarbus conocephalus (Kessler, 1872) from Hari river using Cytb gene

Recently, Luciobarbus conocephalus from the Hari River was reported for the first time, but there is doubt about the validity of this species between authors, because some of them placed it as a subspecies or synonym of L. capito. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the status of phylogeny and the validity of this species. For this purpose, specimens captured from Hari River (between the lower of Dosti dam and Khatoun bridge) using an electrofishing device. After DNA extraction from the fins, Cytb gene was amplified and sequenced. Using sequences, the phylogeny tree was plotted by Bayesian inference and Maximum likelihood estimation. According to the results, Hari barbel is a valid species and differs from Bulatmai barbel. Colonial jaundice was found in genealogical trees depicted in a separate cluster of L. capito with high support. Hari barbel was found in phylogenetic trees depicted in a separate cluster of L. capito with high support, and the Alignments results of Cytb gene of this species also differed in 11 unique loci with L. capito. In addition, the mean genetic distance of K2P for the two species of Hari and Bulatmai barbels was about 1.3%, which seems to be an acceptable distance for the valid species of the genus Luciobarbus.