Molecular phylogeny inferred from mitochondrial DNA of the grouper Epinephelus spp. in Indonesia collected from local fish market

Abstract

Jefri E, Zamani EP, Subhan B, Madduppa HH. 2015. Molecular phylogeny inferred from mitochondrial DNA of the grouper Epinephelus spp. in Indonesia collected from local fish market. Biodiversitas 16: 254-263. Groupers are widely distributed in the
tropical and subtropical coastal waters, and are globally one of the most commercially important groups of marine fish, commanding
high market price and are being heavily targeted in fisheries. Over fishing in Indonesia becomes a pivotal factor, which is seriously
threatening the grouper biodiversity, as separate catch statistics are not reported for most species, and landings are often summarized as
‘serranids’ or ‘groupers’. This lack of species-specific catch data is due to the difficulty of identifying many of the species. The focus of
this study was the tracking of molecular phylogeny of Epinephelus spp. of the family Serranidae. DNA amplification using
mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I resulted in 526-base pairs long sequences all samples. A total of seven species were characterized
that are (Epinephelus areolatus, E. merra, E. fasciatus, E. longispinis, E. coioides, E. ongus and E. coeruleopunctatus). All of which
were found to belong to 7 different clades in the constructed phylogenetic tree. E. ongus is genetically closest to E. coeruleopunctatus
with genetic distance 0.091 (9%), whereas the farthest genetic distance was successfully identified between E. ongus and E. merra with
genetic distance 0.178 (18%). Migration activity on spawning and movement of larvae that are affected by Indonesian Through flow
suspected as the cause of the closeness between species grouper Epinephelus spp. in the phylogeny tree from several Indonesian seas,
although information about the location and time of Epinephelus spp. spawning activity sometimes difficult to obtain certainty. Fish
identification using molecular phylogenetic approach has been successfully applied in this study. It seems need further application on
this method to avoid misidentification and due to high variety of species landing at local fish market. Nevertheless, this study would be
an important data in the genetic management for the sustainable conservation and trade of grouper (Epinephelus spp.) in Indonesia.