Acanthochromis, Allen, 1999

Tang, Kevin L., Stiassny, Melanie L. J., Mayden, Richard L. & DeSalle, Robert, 2021, Systematics of Damselfishes, Ichthyology & Herpetology 109 (1), pp. 258-318 : 293

Acanthochromis .

— As discussed above, Acanthochromis was formerly classified with Chromis and its relatives (e.g., McCulloch, 1929; Whitley, 1929; Marshall, 1964; Allen, 1975a, 1991), prior to its reclassification in the subfamily Pomacentrinae (Cooper et al., 2009) . Acanthochromis polyacanthus , the sole member of the genus, was initially the only pomacentrid known to lack a dispersive planktonic phase, a rare occurence in marine species, and the only damselfish reported to engage in parental care of juvenile offspring ( Robertson, 1973; Allen, 1975a; Thresher, 1984; Nakazono, 1993; Kavanagh, 1998, 2000). With its limited capacity for dispersal, it is no surprise that different populations display variation in their coloration, genetics, life history, morphology, and ontogeny ( Planes and Doherty, 1997a, 1997b; Kavanagh, 2000; Planes et al., 2001). The extensive divergence in color patterns, where individual localities often have unique color morphs, is likely the result of a strong preference for mates with similar color patterns (Allen, 1975a, 1991; Doherty et al., 1994; Planes and Doherty, 1997a, 1997b; Kavanagh, 2000). Its sister-group relationship to Altrichthys is well supported (100% bootstrap; Fig. 1 ).

Figures

FIG. 1. The phylogenetic relationships of damselfishes (Teleostei: Pomacentridae): (A) outgroup taxa; (B) subfamilies Microspathodontinae and Glyphisodontinae; (C) subfamily Chrominae; (D) subfamily Pomacentrinae (part I); (E) subfamily Pomacentrinae (part II). The phylogeny is based on the maximum-likelihood topology with the best log likelihood score (ln L ¼ –45,4518.728) recovered from ten independent maximum-likelihood analyses of a data matrix composed of 462 taxa and 6,865 nucleotides. Bootstrap values from 1,000 ultrafast replicates are displayed for each node