ORIGINAL PAPER Biogeographical history of the genus Atherina (Pisces: Atherinidae) in the central Eastern Atlantic S. Moreno-Borges 1 & A. Brito 1 & S. M. Francisco 2 Received: 28 March 2019 /Revised: 3 July 2019 /Accepted: 26 July 2019 # Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung 2019 Abstract The biogeographical history of Macaronesian and South African sand-smelt is approached for the first time with the inclusion of A. lopeziana in the genus’ phylogenetic analysis, using a fragment of the mitochondrial control region. The fossil-calibrated phylogeny revealed an early process of vicariance close to the estimated age of Atherina (~ 19 Mya) leading to two old clades separating European from South African sand-smelts; these two groups evolved into the five extant species. The question raised by previous studies about the identity of the Macaronesian sand-smelt was confirmed; A. presbyter reached Canary Islands and Azores (~ 1.1 Ma) and the populations in these archipelagos have remained highly isolated. The poor dispersal capability of this genus in conjunction with the fast cooling events during Pliocene and Pleistocene was pointed out as the main factor causing the isolation and speciation processes of the populations inhabiting these regions. Keywords Sand-smelts . Atherina. lopeziana . Fossil-calibrated . Macaronesia Introduction The genus Atherina Linnaeus, 1758 comprises five accepted species commonly known as sand-smelts (Maugé 1990; Morais et al. 2016; Froese and Pauly 2017): Atherina boyeri Risso, 1810; Atherina breviceps Valenciennes, 1835; Atherina hepsetus Linnaeus, 1758; Atherina lopeziana Rossignol & Blache, 1961 Atherina presbyter Cuvier, 1829. These fishes inhabit the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Black Sea and extend southwards into the southern Atlantic and western Indian Ocean along the African coast (Quignard and Pras 1986). They generally inhabit shallow coastal waters, but are also found in estuaries, freshwater lagoons, and lakes. The taxonomy of this genus has caused several disputes and controversy due to its classification based on ambiguous morphological characters and to the high intraspecific varia- tion among populations (e.g. Klossa-Kilia et al. 2002; Trabelsi et al. 2002a, 2002b). In the past few decades, several works have tried to improve the understanding of this group using molecular markers (Klossa-Kilia et al. 2002, 2007; Francisco et al. 2008, 2009, 2011; Pujolar et al. 2012). Speciation within the genus seems to be relatively common, and several authors reported genetic population structure along some species dis- tribution. One of the main reasons explaining these events is the poor dispersal capability of sand-smelts, closely related with their reproductive strategy. Sand-smelts present demersal eggs attached to the vegetation with a long period of incuba- tion (around 14 days depending on the environmental condi- tions and the species); the larvae are well-developed (approx- imately 6–8 mm) and immediately able to start exogenous feeding (Palmer and Culley 1984; Bamber et al. 1985; Neira et al. 1988). Hatching larvae take no more than 20 days to fully develop their fins and efficient swimming, staying close to inshore waters, thus limiting passive dispersal by sea cur- rents (Bamber et al. 1985). The phylogenetic relationships between A. presbyter pop- ulations inhabiting the Eastern Atlantic have shown to be Communicated by R. Thiel Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-019-00996-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * S. Moreno-Borges sergiomb93@hotmail.com 1 BIOECOMAC, Unidad Departamental de Ciencias Marinas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de La Laguna, Avenida Astrofísico Francisco Sánchez s/n, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, S/C de Tenerife Canary Islands, Spain 2 MARE—Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ISPA Instituto Universitário, Rua Jardim do Tabaco 34, 1149-041 Lisbon, Portugal Marine Biodiversity https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-019-00996-2