Population Structure of the Sword Prawn (Parapenaeopsis hardwickii) (Decapoda: Penaeidae) in the East China Sea and Waters Adjacent to Taiwan Inferred from the Mitochondrial Control Region

hardwickii) (Decapoda: Penaeidae) in the East China Sea and waters adjacent to Taiwan inferred from the mitochondrial control region. Zoological Studies 46(5): xxx-xxx. Sequence analyses on the complete mitochondrial control region (1048 bp in length) were conducted to elucidate the population genetic structure of the sword prawn (Parapenaeopsis hardwickii) (Decapoda: Penaeidae) in the East China Sea (ECS) and waters adjacent to Taiwan. Four samples including 171 individuals were separately collected from the ECS and waters off Ilan (IL, northeastern Taiwan), Taichung (TC, west-central Taiwan), and Cheding (CD, southwestern Taiwan), and 153 haplotypes were obtained. The haplotype diversity (h) was high for all samples (99.6%), with values from 99.2 % (TC) to 99.8%. Nucleotide diversity (π) was low for all samples (0.77%), with values from 0.66 % ± 0.12 % (ECS) to 0.95 % ± 0.11% (IL). Both Tajima’s D and Fu and Li’s D statistics suggested that this species in the studied waters has experienced population expansion since the last glacial maximum. Despite no phylogeographic structure in the haplotypes, FST values between IL and the rest of the samples indicated significant genetic differences. The UPGMA tree o