1 Mitochondrial Haplotypes Indicate Parapatric-like Phylogeographic Structure in Blue-Spotted Maskray (Neotrygon kuhlii) from the Coral Triangle Region

Phylogeographic structure was investigated in the blue-spot-ted maskray, Neotrygon kuhlii, focusing on the Coral Triangle region. We used as genetic marker a 519-bp fragment of the cytochrome c-oxidase subunit I (COI) gene, sequenced in a total of 147 individuals from 26 sampling locations. The parsimony network of COI haplotypes was split into seven distinct clades within the Coral Triangle region. Different clades had exclusive but contiguous geographic distribu-tions, indicating parapatric-like phylogeographic structure. Strong genetic differences were also inferred between local populations within a clade, where reciprocal monophyly between geographically adjacent samples was observed on several instances. Nearly 25 % of the total molecular variance could be ascribed to differences between geographic sam-ples within a clade, whereas interclade variation accounte