Genetic profiling of groupers of the Genus Epinephelus (Family: Serranidae) using DNA- Level markers.

Groupers are economically important marine fishes having world wide distribution. Phenotypic identification of species of the genus Epinephelus is often confusing due to overlapping of morphological characters. The Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fingerprinting was used to develop genetic profiles in seven species of Epinephelus, such as E. diacanthus, E. areolatus, E. chlorostigma, E. bleekeri, E. coioides, E. tauvina, and E. malabaricus with a view to ratifying their taxonomic status. The RAPD fingerprints generated with four primers (OPA 01, OPA 07, OPF 08 and OPF 10) were consistent, reproducible and yielded species-specific diagnostic markers in all the species. A total of 59 RAPD loci in the size range of 70- 4500 bp were produced from all the four arbitrary primers. UPGMA dendrogram was constructed based on genetic distance values to show the genetic relationships among seven species. Intraspecies genetic distance values were significantly lower than interspecies values. E. malabaricus was observed to be most distantly related to E. diacanthus and E. bleekeri. A very close genetic relationship was seen among E. coioides, E. tauvina and E. malabaricus and also between E. chlorostigma and E. bleekeri. Within species genetic polymorphism was highest in E. chlorostigma and lowest in E. tauvina. Multivariate statistical analysis of truss network landmark distance measures was also done to differentiate five species of Epinephelus based on their body size and shape variation. Results of Principal Component Analysis and Discriminant analysis were in conformity with those of RAPD analysis