Mitochondrial Genome of Grapsus albolineatus and Insights into the Phylogeny of Brachyura.

Abstract

Brachyura is among the most diverse groups of crustaceans, with over 7000 described species. Crab mitogenomes are important for understanding molecular evolution and phylogenetic relationships. Grapsus albolineatus exhibits specific rearrangements compared with the Pancrustacean ground pattern and other Brachyura species. The gene arrangement of G. albolineatus is similar to that of ancestral crustaceans, barring that of the translocated trnH gene. In phylogenetic analyses, the Bayesian inference estimation was observed to be superior to the maximum likelihood estimation when the nodal support values were compared. Considering the results of the gene rearrangement pattern and phylogenetic analysis, we speculate that G. albolineatus belongs to Grapsidae. Our comparative study indicated that mitogenomes are a useful phylogenetic tool at the subfamily level within Brachyura. The findings indicate that mitogenomes could be a useful tool for systematics in other Brachyuran species.