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A young clade repeating an old pattern: diversity in Nothonotus darters (Teleostei: Percidae) endemic to the Cumberland River

Hypotheses of diversification in eastern North American freshwater fishes have focused primarily on allopatric distributions of species between disjunct highland areas and major river systems. However, these hypotheses do not fully explain the rich diversity of species within highland regions and river systems. Relatively old diversification events at small geographic scales have been observed in the Barcheek Darter subclade that occurs in the Cumberland River drainage (CRD) in Kentucky and Tennessee, United States of America, but it is unknown if this pattern is consistent in other darter subclades. We explored phylogeographic diversity in two species of Nothonotus darters, N. microlepidus and N. sanguifluus, endemic to the CRD to compare phylogenetic patterns between Barcheek Darters and species of Nothonotus. We collected sequence data for a mitochondrial gene (cytb) and three nuclear genes (MLL, S7 and RAG1) from 19 N. microlepidus and 35 N. sanguifluus specimens. Gene trees were estimated using maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods, and a ‘species tree’ was inferred using a Bayesian method. These trees indicate that species diversity in Nothonotus is underestimated. Five distinct lineages were evident, despite retained ancestral polymorphism and unsampled extirpated populations. Comparison of chronograms for Barcheek Darters and Nothonotus revealed that microendemism resulting from species diversification at small geographic scales in the CRD is a consistent pattern in both old and young darter subclades. Our analyses reveal that geographic isolating mechanisms that result in similar phylogeographic patterns in the CRD are persistent through long expanses of evolutionary time.