DNA barcoding of commercially important snapper species (Lutjaniformes; Lutjanidae; Lutjanus) from Visakhapatnam, Central Eastern coast of India

Abstract

Snappers are commercially important fishes in Indian waters, currently belonging to the order Lutjaniformes, family Lutjanidae. Generally, recognizing species of Lutjanus is a challenging task not only because of overlapping morphological characters, such as shapes, size groups, or colour patterns, but also based on the definition of the species concept or the definition of the threshold for speciation. In India there has not been any updated and accurate study of the genus so far. Besides, identification of the group based on ecological aspects and DNA barcoding tools were confined to limited laboratories. In the present study, ten species of snappers were identified from samples obtained from the major fish landing centres in the Visakhapatnam, Central Eastern coast of India. Snapper species were identified using COI (Cytochrome oxidase I) sequences for DNA barcoding. The validity of the conjecture species-level taxonomy based on COI is assisted with high equivalence search (98–100%) both in BOLD and BLAST, well-distributed genetic distance values.

Keywords:

• BOLD
• COI
• DNA barcoding
• commercial fishes

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the Head, Department of Marine Living Resources, College of Science and Technology, Andhra University for providing facilities to carry out this research work. Authors are also grateful to Dr Wouter Holleman, South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, Grahams town, South Africa his valuable suggestions, discussions and insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Figure 1. Map of the Visakhapatnam, Central Eastern Coast of India collection sites of the snapper samples.

Figure 2. Lutjanus argentimaculatus.

Figure 3. L. erythropterus.

Figure 4. L.fulviflamma.

Figure 5. L. fulvus.

Figure 6. L.johnii.

Figure 7. L.lutjanus.

Figure 8. L.madras.

Figure 9. L. malabaricus.

Figure 10. L. rivulatus.

Figure 11. L. xanthopinnis.

Figure 12. Neighbour joining (NJ) tree of COI sequences of ten species of genus Lutjanus.