Unveiling the genetic mysteries of Amazonian aquatic species: exploring the catfish genome through sequencing for SNP discovery in rheophilic species

Abstract

The impact of habitat loss on patterns of neutral and adaptive genetic variability in the rheophilic ichthyofauna has been little studied. Here, we used a ddRAD-seq approach on specimens of the genus Baryancistrus sampled from rheophilic habitats under strong anthropogenic influences, to identify geographically informative nuclear DNA single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) loci. We explored different bioinformatic parameters and made datasets, with retrieved SNPs varying between 551 and 60,687. The filter with 40% of missing data indicated lower dispersion and more symmetry over the dataset. These SNPs datasets are now available and will be useful for large-scale genetic studies on this endemic and endangered Amazonic catfish.