Schubart et al.: DNA sequences of swimming crabs Callinectes bocourti and C. maracciiboensis 
479 
Table 3 
Percent genetic divergence (uncorrected; excluding indels) between 553 base pairs of 16S mtDNA among species of Callinectes 
and the outgroup Portunus ordwayi, as used for the phylogeny in Figure 2 (1=C. similis (U75269); 2=“C. sapidus” (U75267); 
3=C. sapidus (FL); 4=C. sapidus (Venezuela); 5 =C. bocourti (ht-1); 6=C. bocourti (ht-5); 7=C. danae (Venezuela); 8 =C. danae (Brazil); 
9=C. ornatus (U75268); 10=C. ornatus (Venezuela CO-1); 11=C. ornatus (Venezuela CO-3); 12=C. ornatus (Brazil); 13=P. ordwayi). 
2 3 4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 
10 
11 
12 
13 
1 0.18 5.61 5.79 
6.33 
6.15 
0.54 
0.54 
2.53 
3.07 
3.07 
2.89 
13.02 
2 5.06 5.24 
5.79 
5.61 
0.54 
0.54 
2.53 
3.07 
3.07 
2.89 
12.12 
3 1.27 
2.53 
2.35 
5.79 
5.79 
5.97 
6.87 
6.87 
6.69 
13.92 
4 
2.71 
2.53 
6.15 
6.15 
6.15 
7.05 
7.05 
7.05 
13.92 
5 
0.18 
6.51 
6.51 
6.33 
6.51 
6.51 
6.33 
14.10 
6 
6.51 
6.51 
6.15 
6.33 
6.33 
6.33 
14.29 
7 
0.00 
2.71 
3.62 
3.62 
3.44 
13.92 
8 
2.71 
3.62 
3.62 
3.44 
13.92 
9 
1.63 
1.63 
1.45 
12.66 
10 
0.36 
0.18 
12.84 
11 
0.18 
13.02 
12 
13.38 
96 
67 r C. similis (U75269) 
70 \ 
98 L “C.sapidus"( U75267) 
88 r C danae (Venezuela) 
ssf C. danae (Brazil) 
- C. ornatus (U75268) 
C ornatus (Venezuela CO-1) 
C. ornatus (Venezuela CO-3) 
C. ornatus (Brazil) 
C. sapidus (Florida & AJ130813) 
C sapidus (Venezuela) 
C. bocourti (Venezuela ht-1) 
99 L C bocourti (Venezuela ht-5) 
Portunus ordwayi (Venezuela) 
r, 
Figure 2 
Phylogenetic relationships of five species of Callinectes based on 553 base 
pairs of 16S mtDNA. Tree topology is based on neighbor-joining (NJ) analy- 
sis with Kimura 2-parameter genetic distances. Sequences accessed online 
for C. similis, putative “C. sapidus and C. ornatus , and C. sapidus, are indi- 
cated solely by electronic database accession numbers. Analyses for Venezue- 
lan C. ornatus include specimens from adjacent localities (see Table 1); those 
for C. bocourti include haplotypes (ht) 1 and 5 (see Table 2 and Fig. 1). Con- 
fidence values >50 were obtained with the interior branch method for NJ 
distance analysis (upper values) and by maximum parsimony analysis after 
2000 bootstrap replicates (lower values, in Italics). 
differences between Geller et al.’s (1997) 
specimen from North Carolina (U75268) 
and three specimens of C. ornatus from 
South America can be attributed to geo- 
graphical distance. In the case of C. sapi- 
dus, however, differences clearly exceed 
a level that could be interpreted as an- 
cestral polymorphism or biogeographical 
variation. Although our new sequence of 
C. sapidus from Florida perfectly matches 
one previously registered for a specimen 
from Louisiana (AJ130813), and both of 
these show limited divergence from a Ven- 
ezuelan specimen, another sequence pre- 
viously reported for C. sapidus (U75267) 
by Geller et al. (1997) differs markedly 
from the aforementioned set. The phylo- 
geny of all 16S sequences presently avail- 
able for Callinectes (Fig. 2) shows that 
the sequence reported for “C. sapidus ” by 
Geller et al. (1997) instead pairs closely 
with C. similis, a grouping supported by 
high bootstrap values. Because no mor- 
phological voucher specimens appear to 
exist for this sequenced specimen, 1 we 
must conclude that the reported sequence 
was based upon a misidentified specimen 
of C. similis. 
Differences in color of some of the Bra- 
zilian specimens (see Sankarankutty et 
al., 1999) could indicate that two or more 
species might be involved in the C. bocour- 
ti complex, regardless of the synonymy that we have herein 
1 Geller, J. 1999. Personal commun. Moss Landing Marine 
Laboratories, Moss Landing, CA 95039. 
proposed. However, color differences should be judged with 
precaution, given the known high variability of this fea- 
ture in C. bocourti (see Williams, 1984). Our recent color 
photography of specimens from Colombia, Venezuela, and 
