Résumé
Among the 899 species of freshwater fishes reported from Sundaland
biodiversity hotspot, nearly 50% are endemics. The functional integrity of
aquatic ecosystems is currently jeopardized by human activities, and
landscape conversion led to the decline of fish populations in several
part of Sundaland, particularly in Java. The inventory of the Javanese
ichthyofauna has been discontinuous, and the taxonomic knowledge is
scattered in the literature. This study provides a DNA barcode reference
library for the inland fishes of Java and Bali with the aim to streamline
the inventory of fishes in this part of Sundaland. Owing to the lack of
available checklist for estimating the taxonomic coverage of this study, a
checklist was compiled based on online catalogues. A total of 95 sites
were visited, and a library including 1046 DNA barcodes for 159 species
was assembled. Nearest neighbour distance was 28-fold higher than maximum
intraspecific distance on average, and a DNA barcoding gap was observed.
The list of species with DNA barcodes displayed large discrepancies with
the checklist compiled here as only 36% (i.e. 77 species) and 60% (i.e. 24
species) of the known species were sampled in Java and Bali, respectively.
This result was contrasted by a high number of new occurrences and the
ceiling of the accumulation curves for both species and genera. These
results highlight the poor taxonomic knowledge of this ichthyofauna, and
the apparent discrepancy between present and historical occurrence data is
to be attributed to species extirpations, synonymy and misidentifications
in previous studies.