Genetic diversity of the orange-spotted grouper (Epinephelus coioides) in Terengganu Malaysia based on mitochondrial cytochrome b sequence data

• Main Authors: Waludin, Shaidatul Nadia, Phang, Ing Chia, Mukai, Yukinori
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: SH Aquaculture. Fisheries. Angling
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/52405/1/52405_Genetic%20Diversity%20of%20the%20Orange-spotted.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/52405/; http://www.iium.edu.my/icosmap/2016/

Orange-spotted grouper (Epinephelus coioides) is known to be one of the economically high values marine. However, its spawning condition is still not well understood by the aqua culturist in Terengganu, Malaysia. Fish farmers depend on natural supply by col-lecting eggs of orange-spotted grouper from the wild. A study was conducted to deter-mine the genetic diversity of farmed orange-spotted grouper population using partial Cytochrome b (Cyt-b) gene. A total of 20 farmed orange-spotted grouper were col-lected from a fish farm in Besut, Terengganu. A piece of dorsal fin area- (1 cm2) was individually clipped from the orange-spotted grouper and immediately preserved in 95% ethanol at ambient temperature upon sampling and kept on -80 ºC until DNA ex-traction was performed. DNA extraction was carried out using Qiagen Blood and Tis-sue kit. PCR amplification of partial Cyt-b was conducted using a universal Cyt-b pri-mer and amplicons of 491 bp was obtained. The amplicons were then purified, se-quenced and the genetic relationship among individuals was analyzed using MEGA6 software for their pairwise distance and phylogenetic tree. Phylogenetic analysis showed orange-spotted grouper is divided into two major groups. Genetic distance among individuals ranged between 0.000 – 0.014. These findings indicate that orange-spotted grouper has low genetic diversity and most of the individuals might be origi-nating from a small population.