Kevin L. Tang's research while affiliated with University of Michigan-Flint and other places

... The notion that the least specialized A. clarkii is at the base of the Amphiprion phylogenetic tree are currently rejected. It is thought that the basal group should be considered Actinicola, which includes two species: A. ocellaris and A. percula, which, unlike the generalized A. clarkii and the other ten species of the clarkii complex, are specialized and show high specificity in the selection of host sea anemone (Elliott et al., 1999;Nguyen et al., 2020;Tang et al., 2021). The ephippium complex of the subgenus Amphiprion includes A. frenatus together with five other species, the subgenus Phalerebus includes A. perideraion and six other species, and the subgenus Paramphiprion includes A. polymnus and two other species (Colleye et al., 2016). ...

... Devario comprises predominantly elongate shoaling fishes found in small fast-flowing hill streams, but some species are found in rivers and one species, Devario auropurpureus (Annandale, 1918), is abundant in Inle Lake in eastern Myanmar. Adult size is commonly 40-50 mm SL; 82 mm SL recorded for D. anomalus Conway, Mayden andTang, 2009 (Conway et al. 2009). The genus shares with some other danionine genera-Chela Hamilton, 1822, Laubuka Bleeker, 1859, Microrasbora Annandale, 1918, and Betadevario Pramod, Fang, Rema Devi, Liao, Jameela Beevi and Kullander, 2010-the presence of supraorbital recesses filled with neuromasts, but in contrast to those genera the paired maxillary barbel is absent or very short in Devario. ...

... For example, the divergence of Tincidae/ Leuciscidae, and Esocidae/Umbride families happened about 75-95 million and 90 million years ago, respectively (Imoto et al., 2013;Marić et al., 2017). And the shape differences of the species belonging to these taxa were considerably higher (the mean ± SD squared (Hirt et al., 2017;Perea et al., 2010). For the pairwise squared Mahalanobis distance data see: Supplementary material. ...

... The adult colour pattern is widely used to distinguish among species of Devario (Conway et al., 2009;Fang, 1997aFang, , 1997bFang & Kottelat, 1999;Kottelat, 2020aKottelat, , 2020bKullander, 2017;Kullander et al., 2017;Kullander & Norén, 2022;Ramananda & Vishwanath, 2014;Sudasinghe et al., 2020). The pigmentation pattern on the flank has been speculated to be under strong selection in this group, which otherwise possesses little differentiation in traits employed for taxonomic classifications (Kullander & Norén, 2022). ...

... A phylogenetic tree based on the novel cytb sequences from this study, plus sequences obtained from GenBank having a high degree of similarity to these at the nucleotide level (best BLAST hit more than 87% in similarity), was also inferred. This incorporates cytb sequences of A. arcus (GenBank accession number AP011398) that were approximately 91-92% similar to A. normalis [48], Mylopharyngodon piceus (DQ026435; 88-89%) [49], A. chinensis (AB218688; 88%) [50,51], A. kikuchii (JX184925; 88%) [51][52][53], Squaliobarbus curriculus (AF051877; 88%), Hypophthalmichthys nobilis (AF051866; 88%), Oxygaster anomalura (HQ009868; 88%) [54], Xenocypris fangi (AF036205; 87%) [55], Ctenopharyngodon idella (JN673556; 87%), and Ischikauia steenackeri (AB239601; 87%) [50]. This tree was constructed by using the Bayesian inference (BI) method with MrBayes 3.1.2 ...

... The seven fish species taxonomically belong to Cypriniformes, Cyprinidae, and Cultrins (Cultrinae) (Cheng et al., 2022), which are also part of the East Asian Endemic group of Cyprinids, and mostly dominant in the local ecosystem. Cultrins (Cultrinae) has been found as a monophyletic group, consisting of two clades, the Cultrine and the Hemicultrine by extensive studies (Cunha et al., 2002;Wang et al., 2004;Saitoh et al., 2006;Mayden et al., 2008;Liu and Chen, 2011;Tang et al., 2013a;Tang et al., 2013b). ...

... In this study, the results are in agreement with Daştan et al. (2012), who used mtDNA PCR-RFLP based on pairwise comparison to study the phylogeographic and phylogenetic relationships among C. kais, C. macrostomus, and Carasobarbus chantrei and indicated that the divergence rates among haplotypes of fish populations from each river basin ranged from 0.023 to 7.35%. Yang et al. (2012) used cyto b gene as a molecular marker to identify Barbus sp. and Carasobarbus sp. DNA sequencing results indicate that there is a genetically close relationship among them, and both species belong to the Cyprinidae family, which in turn belongs to the order Cypriniformes. ...

... In contrast, the presence of fused frontals was an argument for placing this family within the suborder Congroidei (Nelson, 2006;Robins, 1989). Recent molecular investigations (i.e., Inoue et al., 2010;Santini et al., 2013;Tang & Fielitz, 2012) indicated close relationships between Serrivomeridae, Anguillidae, and Nemichthyidae, which all together form a monophyletic suborder Anguilloidei (Nelson et al., 2016). Among other eel families, Serrivomeridae are distinguished by a slender, elongated, and laterally compressed body, which gradually tapers posteriorly and does not bear a caudal filament; long and sharpened anteriorly head with beak-like snout; occlusible jaws; wide gill opening; closely settled nostrils; much reduced (very short) pectoral fin and sensory system on the head; complete set of the opercular bones; fused frontals; and the absence of the supraoccipital. ...

... In the course of evolution, this wide distribution was reduced and teeth were retained only on the most anterior and most posterior parts of the visceral skeleton, to establish an oral and a pharyngeal dentition, respectively. 1,2 Advanced teleosts, such as cichlids (Cichliformes) or ricefish (Beloniformes) retain both an oral dentition (teeth located on the mandibular arch, i.e., dentary and premaxillary bones) and a pharyngeal dentition (toothed areas, associated mainly with infrapharyngobranchials in the roof of the pharynx, and with ceratobranchials in the pharynx floor [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Some, less advanced, lineages have also lost the oral dentition, and teeth are exclusively present on the last pharyngeal arch (fifth ceratobranchials). ...

... The genetic distance was estimated using Tamura's three-parameter model [16]. Four outgroup sequences were included in the analysis: S. czerskii (EF193433), S. kiangsiensis (AY952984), S. soldatovi (JN003337), and S. nigripinnis (JN003319) [17,18]. ...