Russian scientists, under the leadership of Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexei Kotov, sequenced the mitogen of the Abrau sprat, a unique endemic fish of Lake Abrau (Krasnodar Territory).
“Sausage fish” (as the original describer S. Myalatsky called it in 1928), or Abrau sprat, is a unique representative of freshwater herring, living only in Lake Abrau. The Abrau sprat differs from its closest relative, the Black Sea-Caspian sprat, in body proportions and some biological features. Until recently, it was believed (IUCN Red List, 2008) that this species had disappeared from the fish community of Lake Abrau and there was no data on its existence in recent decades (Red Book of the Russian Federation, 2021).
When studying the zooplankton of the lake in 2019, several small herring fish, identified as Clupeonella abrau, were found in the plankton net as bycatch. To verify the accuracy of the definition, historical material from the collection of the Zoological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (collection 1938) was analyzed. DNA barcoding showed the identity of modern and historical samples of sprat from Lake Abrau.
To clarify the phylogenetic relationships, the complete mitochondrial genome of the sprat was sequenced and annotated, which showed significant similarity with other Clupeonella.
The “sausage fish” is a unique component of the ichthyofauna of the Lake Abrau natural monument, and at present this species has not disappeared from the fish community of the reservoir and is able to reproduce under current conditions.
The study was attended by employees of the I.D. Papanin Institute of Inland Water Biology RAS and the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS. The work was published in the July issue of the journal Doklady Biological Sciences.