DNA barcoding of gobiid fishes (Perciformes, Gobioidei)

Abstract

Gobiids constitute a major proportion of fish population in both tropical and temperate freshwater as well as marine ecosystem. Due to their small size, cryptic ecology and ambiguous morphological characters, gobiids diversity was not documented completely. In this study, DNA barcodes were generated for 11 species of gobiids, collected from the Ashtamudi Lake, India. The mitochondrial COI gene was amplified using universal primers and the resulted 650 bp amplicon was sequenced. The COI barcodes clearly distinguished all the species with high inter-specific genetic distance values than intra-specific values based on K2P (Kimura 2 Parameter) model. The average genetic distance (K2P model) within species, genus and family was 1.2%, 22.2% and 25.3%, respectively. In addition to barcode-based species identification system, Nucleotide Diagnostic (ND) characters specific for species were identified. The Neighbor-Joining tree revealed distinct clusters shared by the species of same genera.

• Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I
• DNA barcoding
• gobiid fishes
• nucleotide diagnostic characters

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Dr. Paul Hebert and Dr. Robert Hanner, University of Guelph, Canada, and Dr. R.D. Ward, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Australia, for guidance and support and Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, for the financial support.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.