Phylogeny of Australian species of flatheads (Teleostei, Platycephalidae) as determined by allozyme electrophoresis

Phylogenetic relationships of 24 taxa of Platycephalid fish were examined for up to 40 loci using starch and polyacrylarnide gel electrophoresis. Over 400 different enzyme mobilities were scored. The extent of homoplasy was estimated to be between 5 and 12%. Polymorphism at the 1% level was observed at 26 of the 40 loci. The importance of shared polymorphic alleles in cladistic analysis was endorsed by the different results obtained from multistate and binary coding of alleles. Many loci were shown to contain phylogenetically informative ancestral alleles which appear irregularly in extant species. The polymorphism parsimony method provided the most informative results. Genetic similarities between endemic Australian species from each family stem provide the basis for a major revision of subfamilies and genera within the family.