Molecular identification of three deepsea fish species of the genus Chelidoperca (Perciformes: Serranidae) from Indian waters

The deepwater basslets of the genus Chelidoperca has eight nominal species and these are relatively small fishes caught in trawl nets operated at depths greater than 100 m. Mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) and 16S rRNA gene sequence variation among three species under the genus Chelidoperca viz., C. investigatoris, C. occipitalis and C. maculicauda from Indian waters and their phylogenetic relationship with other representatives from same genus was studied. Fifteen individuals of Chelidoperca were sampled from different localities in the east and west coasts of India and further, four COI sequences from GenBank were used to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationship in the genus Chelidoperca. Based on COI sequence data analysis, the intraspecies genetic distance ranged from 0.000 to 0.005 while interspecies distance varied from 0.073 to 0.194. With respect to 16S rRNA sequences, the intraspecies genetic distance ranged from 0.000 to 0.002, while interspecies genetic distance varied from 0.062 to 0.118. The mean genetic difference observed between C. investigatoris and the other species used in this study was 11.53%. Results of the study revealed that the genus Chelidoperca is monophyletic.