Cytochrome-C Oxidase I Gene-Based Genetic Divergence and Molecular Phylogeny Among the Species of Fish Genus Channa

Abstract

The freshwater snakehead fishes are members of the family Channidae and order Perciform, which are native to parts of Africa and Asia with widespread distributions. The present study was aimed to assess the genetic variability and molecular phylogeny among 22 species of genus Channa, viz. C. argus, C. asiatica, C. aurantimaculata, C. bankanensis, C. barca, C. bleheri, C. burmanica, C. diplogramma, C. gachua, C. lucius, C. maculata, C. marulius, C. melasoma, C. micropeltis, C. orientalis, C. ornatipinnis, C. panaw, C. pleurophthlama, C. pulchra, C. punctata, C. stewartii and C. striata, using partial 513 bp long consensus sequence of cytochrome-c oxidase subunit I mitochondrial DNA retrieved from NCBI (March, 2018). The study showed 281 haplotypes with 267 variable sites (i.e., 33 singletons and 234 parsimoniously informative) in nucleotide positions. Most of the sequences were A + T rich, except in C. argus which is G + C rich (50.25%). The NJ and MP trees showed similar topology with discrete branches, each as a distinct species of the Channa with slight differences in bootstrap values. Maximum K2P distance was found between the C. ornatipinnis and the C. melasoma. The maximum numbers of polymorphic loci were present in C. gachua.