Using DNA Barcoding Technique to Identify Some Scleractinian Coral Species along the Egyptian Coast of the Red Sea and Southern of Arabian Gulf

Mohammed Ahmed Sadek,Fedekar Fadel Madkour,Mohammed Ismail Ahmed,Mahmoud Hasan Hanafy

doi:10.26502/jesph.96120028

Mohammed Ahmed Sadek, Fedekar Fadel Madkour + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.26502/jesph.96120028

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Abstract

Scleractinian corals Phylogenetic studies have been shown that most taxa are not matched with their evolutionary histories. Using gross morphology as principal base, traditional taxonomy cannot solve the lack of well-defined and homologous characters that can describe scleractinian diversity sufficient. Scleractinian Coral species are hard to identify because of their morphological plasticity. DNA barcoding techniques were used to build molecular phylogenetic analysis to some common scleractinian species in Red Sea and Arabian Gulf. The phylogenetic analysis showed that Porites harrisoni, was clustered separate from other Porites sp collected from gene bank. While for Acropora digitefra genetic divergences were recorded between samples collected from the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba. Platygyra daeleda sample from Fanous (Red Sea) were distinct from other Platygyra daeleda samples same case were recorded with Pocillopora verrucosa samples. The DNA barcoding technique proves to be very useful in not only differentiating between species but also finding genetic diversity within species.

Highlights

Morphological identification is confronted with difficulties from phenotypic plasticity, life stage, gender; inability to identify cryptic species, animal parts and lack of taxon knowledge [1]
Based on DNA quality and quantity and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) successfulness, only 12 samples represent 5 species of common scleractinian corals were selected for c oxidase subunit I (COI) barcoding
While the most zooxanthellae exclude in the second method, this does not guarantee complete absence of the zooxanthellae’s nucleic acid, which cause problem for sensitive techniques such as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)

Summary

Introduction

Morphological identification is confronted with difficulties from phenotypic plasticity, life stage, gender; inability to identify cryptic species, animal parts and lack of taxon knowledge [1]. Many taxa spread across the scleractinian tree of life have been incorporated into a rigorous classification underpinned by greater phylogenetic understanding [2]. Morphological and physiological diverse within scleractinian corals species [3,4,5] suggests that their population structure is complex [5]. The complexity of coral population structures has been some illustration by Allozyme electrophoresis [6,7,8], but it was limited by number of loci and the level of variation at these loci. Using DNA-based techniques recently develop our understanding of the genetic structure of coral populations [9]

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