MAKING SENSE OF THE TAXONOMY OF THE MOST COMMERCIALLY IMPORTANT SHRIMP PENAEUS FABRICIUS, 1798 SL (CRUSTACEA: DECAPODA: PENAEIDAE): A WAY FORWARD

Members of Penaeus s.l. are the most economically important shrimps, but there has been substantial confusion on their classification over the last few decades. In this study, we reconstructed a robust molecular phylogeny for these shrimps based on the most extensive dataset to date in terms of the number of molecular markers (four nuclear and three mitochondrial) and taxon coverage (31 of 32 known species in Penaeus s.l.). Two of the six genera proposed for Penaeus s.l. were revealed to be paraphyletic. Moreover, none of the morphological characters generally used for separating the species groups are synapomorphic or evolutionarily informative. As synapomorphic characters have yet to be discovered for all the main clades within Penaeus s.l., it is appropriate to retain these shrimps in a single genus to reflect their evolutionary relationships in terms of integrated taxonomy. A single genus classification scheme is also the least disruptive to the taxonomic names of these very important commercial shrimps.