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Abstract

ABSTRACT Uncovering intraspecific genetic differentiation is important for evolutionary and phylogenetic investigations of marine fish species. Compared with partial mitochondrial sequences, the mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) is more informative, providing higher resolution for determining evolutionary patterns of species. The yellow goosefish (Lophius litulon) is a commercially important fish species in China, Korea and Japan, yet the genetic investigations of this species are lacking till now. In this study, we assembled and annotated a mitogenome of the yellow goosefish collected from the Taizhou coastal waters, China. The complete mitogenome is 16,468 bp in length, containing typical features with 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs and one noncoding control region. Comparative analysis revealed mitogenome size variation in the L. litulon, which was mainly attributed to a 40-bp insertion fragment in the control region. Further BLAST analysis against the GenBank database indicated the observed insertion sequence matched with the control region sequence of L. piscatorius, showing the highest identity of 98.44%. Considering the publically available mitogenome sequence (KJ020931) was published ten years ago, our result suggested a recent mitochondrial introgression event between these two species. This should be the first time to detect mitochondrial introgression in goosefish species. Phylogenetic analysis revealed phylogenetic inconsistency in investigated goosefishes in family Lophiidae, which should be resolved by using more powerful approaches. The genetic data and information reported in this study will aid the mitochondrial evolution and differentiation of goosefishes and anglerfishes.