Widespread sympatry in a species-rich clade of marine fishes (Carangoidei)

A universal paradigm describing patterns of speciation across the tree of
life has been debated for decades. In marine organisms, patterns of
speciation are largely unknown due to the deficiency of species-level
phylogenies and information on species’ distributions, as well as
conflicting relationships between species’ dispersal, range size and
co-occurrence. Most research on global patterns of marine fish speciation
has focused on coral reef or pelagic species. Carangoidei is an
ecologically important clade of marine fishes that utilize both coral reef
and pelagic environments. We used sequence capture of 1314 ultraconserved
elements (UCEs) from 154 taxa to generate a phylogeny of Carangoidei and
its parent clade, Carangiformes. Age-range correlation analyses of the
geographic distributions and divergence times of sister species pairs
reveal widespread sympatry, with 73% of sister species pairs exhibiting a
sympatric geographic distribution, regardless of node age, and most
species pairs co-existing across large portions of their ranges. We also
observe greater disparity in body size and water column depth utilization
between sympatric than allopatric sister species. These and other
ecological or behavioral attributes likely facilitate sympatry among the
most closely related carangoids.