Morphological and molecular evaluation of Etroplus suratensis (Pices: Cichlidae) from three geographical locations of Peninsular India

Publicado 2023-04-26
Seção Research Articles

Autores

  • Nevin Raju Post Graduate and Research Department of Zoology, Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, Kerala, India
  • K.S. Sunish Post Graduate and Research Department of Zoology, Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, Kerala, India.
  • Kurian Mathew Abraham Department of Aquatic Biology and FisheriesUniversity of KeralaKariavattom, ThiruvananthapuramKerala 695 581, India.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7770/safer-V13N1-art607

Resumo

Interspecific variations within species is common by having subspecies, races or strains and moreover, population differences are also evident in morphological, molecular, physiological and other characteristics, which will be added up by geographical variations. Etroplus suratensis (Pisces: Perciformes: Cichlidae) is an important brackish water food fish known for its high commercial value and recognised by government as the State fish of Kerala and distributed and cultured throughout the peninsular India. Identification sometimes fails to discriminate species while following the conventional morphometric measures due to phenotypic plasticity and presencs of morphotyes. An attempt was made to differentiate the morphological and molecular characteristics of E. suratensis from three different states, Andhra Pradesh (Visakhapatanam), Karnataka (Mangalore) and Kerala (Cochin) of south India.  Comparison of total of 8 morphometric measurements and phylogenetic evaluation using mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (CoI) as molecular genetic marker was used assess geographical variation of the species. Morphologically species from Visakhapatanam showed significant difference from other two localities whereas mean genetic divergence value between E. suratensis collected from Visakhapatnam and Mangalore with a native sample of E. suratensis were found to be significantly low (0.002%), which shows that E. suratensis distributed in Visakhapatnam and Mangalore though they are colour variants, are genetically similar.

Biografia do Autor

Nevin Raju, Post Graduate and Research Department of Zoology, Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, Kerala, India

Postgraduate Student

Post Graduate and Research Department of Zoology, Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, Kerala, India.

K.S. Sunish, Post Graduate and Research Department of Zoology, Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, Kerala, India.

Assistant Professor,

Post Graduate and Research Department of Zoology, Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, Kerala, India

Kurian Mathew Abraham, Department of Aquatic Biology and FisheriesUniversity of KeralaKariavattom, ThiruvananthapuramKerala 695 581, India.

Assistant Professor

Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries
University of Kerala
Kariavattom, Thiruvananthapuram
Kerala 695 581, India