Origin and dispersal of the chars of genus Salvelinus (Salmonidae, Salmoniformes)

A new approach to the problem of origin and dispersal of genus Salvelinus is proposed, based on analysis of their ecology and reproductive biology forming in the process of climatic and geological evolution of the Earth. There was concluded that the ancestor of the char species formed from one of the coldest populations of phyletic line Parasalmo clarki — Salmo trutta that occurred in an isolated region of the East Arctic at the beginning of the Pliocene. With further cooling of climate in the East Arctic, the chars adopted consistently to colder living conditions, and the stages of these adaptations were fixed during isolation of the ancestral forms outside the region. The most ancient char species is Salvelinus leucom а enis evolved about 4 million years ago. Most other species of this genus were formed at the end of the Pliocene during the first glaciation of the Northern Hemisphere. Cristivomer namaycush is considered as the species belonged to subfamily Huchoninae, and the phylogenetic branch of Salvethymus svetovidovi as that formed independently from the chars in the Pacific Ocean. Evolution of salmon fishes developed since the late Miocene toward adaptation to progressive cooling of climate, so the chars of genus Salvelinus and Cristivomer namaycush acquired convergent similarity as the most cold-water representatives of the phyletic lines Salmoninae and Huchoninae.