page_title: Coregonus
section_title: Species diversity
hierarchical_section_title: Coregonus / Species diversity
context_page_description: Coregonus is a diverse genus of fish in the salmon family. The Coregonus species are known as whitefishes. The genus contains at least 68 described extant taxa, but the true number of species is a matter of debate. The type species of the genus is Coregonus lavaretus.
  Most Coregonus species inhabit lakes and rivers, and several species, including the Arctic cisco, the Bering cisco, and the least cisco are anadromous, moving between salt water and fresh water.
  The genus was previously subdivided into two subgenera Coregonus and Leucichthys, Coregonus comprising taxa with sub-terminal mouth and usually a benthic feeding habit, Leucichthys those with terminal or supra-terminal mouth and usually a pelagic plankton-feeding habit. This classification is not natural however: based on molecular data, ciscoes comprise two distinct lineages within the genus. Moreover, the genus Stenodus is not phylogenetically distinct from Coregonus.
  Many whitefish species or ecotypes, especially from the Great Lakes and the Alpine lakes of Europe, have gone extinct over the past century or are endangered. Among 12 freshwater fish considered extinct in Europe, 6 are Coregonus.
context_section_description: There is much uncertainty and confusion in the classification of the many of species of this genus. Particularly, one extreme view of diversity recognises just two main species in Northern and Central Europe, the common whitefish C. lavaretus and the vendace C. albula, whereas others would divide these into numerous, often narrowly distributed species. A drastic increase in number of recognized species occurred in 2007, when a review advocated that more than 50 local European populations should be considered as distinct based on morphological differences. It has been estimated that several of them are very young, having separated from each other less than 15,000 years ago. Many of these were primarily defined based on number of gill rakers. Although this largely is hereditary, the number is highly variable (even within single populations and species), can change relatively fast in response to changes and genetic studies have shown that they often are of limited use in predicting relationships among populations (a large difference in gill raker number does not necessarily equal a distant relationship). Genetic differences between several of the recently proposed species, even ones that are relatively distinct morphologically, are very limited and sometimes they are not monophyletic. Various Coregonus, whether regarded as separate species or not, readily interbreed with each other. A review of whitefish in the United Kingdom found that the identification key provided in 2007 did not match most individuals and that solid evidence for more than one species in that region is lacking. Many European lakes have more than one Coregonus morph differing in ecology and morphology (especially gill rakers). Such morphs are sometimes partially reproductively isolated from each other, leading to suggestions of recognizing them as separate but clinal species. The morphs or clinal species may rapidly (in 15 years or less, equalling three Coregonus generations) disappear by merging into a single in response to changes in the habitat. A similar pattern can be seen in North America where the ciscoes of the Coregonus artedi complex in the Great Lakes and elsewhere comprise several, often co-occurring morphs or ecotypes, whose taxonomic status remains controversial.
  In 2017, FishBase listed 78 species, including the more than 50 proposed for Europe in 2007. Some of these are recently extinct (marked with a cross, "†") and C. reighardi is likely extinct.
  Coregonus albellus Fatio, 1890 (autumn brienzlig)
  Coregonus albula Linnaeus, 1758 (vendace)
  †Coregonus alpenae (Koelz, 1924) (longjaw cisco)
  Coregonus alpinus Fatio, 1885 (kropfer)
  Coregonus anaulorum Chereshnev, 1996
  Coregonus arenicolus Kottelat, 1997
  Coregonus artedi Lesueur, 1818 (northern cisco or lake herring)
  Coregonus atterensis Kottelat, 1997
  Coregonus austriacus C. C. Vogt, 1909
  Coregonus autumnalis (Pallas, 1776) (Arctic cisco)
  Coregonus baerii Kessler, 1864
  Coregonus baicalensis Dybowski, 1874
  Coregonus baunti Mukhomediyarov, 1948
  Coregonus bavaricus Hofer, 1909
  Coregonus bezola Fatio, 1888 (bezoule)
  Coregonus candidus Goll, 1883
  Coregonus chadary Dybowski, 1869 (Khadary whitefish)
  Coregonus clupeaformis (Mitchill, 1818) (lake whitefish)
  Coregonus clupeoides Lacépède, 1803 (powan)
  Coregonus confusus Fatio, 1885
  Coregonus danneri C. C. Vogt, 1908
  Coregonus duplex Fatio, 1890
  Coregonus fatioi Kottelat, 1997
  †Coregonus fera Jurine, 1825 (fera)
  Coregonus fontanae M. Schulz & Freyhof, 2003 (Stechlin cisco)
  †Coregonus gutturosus (C. C. Gmelin (de), 1818)
  Coregonus heglingus Schinz, 1822
  †Coregonus hiemalis Jurine, 1825 (gravenche)
  Coregonus hoferi L. S. Berg, 1932
  Coregonus holsata Thienemann, 1916
  Coregonus hoyi (Milner, 1874) (bloater)
  Coregonus huntsmani W. B. Scott, 1987 (Atlantic whitefish)
  †Coregonus johannae (G. Wagner, 1910) (deepwater cisco)
  Coregonus kiletz Michailovsky, 1903
  Coregonus kiyi (Koelz, 1921) (kiyi)
  Coregonus ladogae Pravdin, Golubev & Belyaeva, 1938
  Coregonus laurettae T. H. Bean, 1881 (Bering cisco)
  Coregonus lavaretus Linnaeus, 1758 (common whitefish, European whi
caption: Bloater, Coregonus hoyi
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