Morphological and molecular analysis of Otolithoides pama (Hamilton, 1822) (Perciformes: Sciaenidae) from Hooghly-Matlah estuarine system of West Bengal, India

Abstract

Morphological characters of Pama croaker Otolithoides pama were established in the present study. The partial sequence of the fish was generated which is an important record of the species available in the Hooghly-Matlah estuarine system of West Bengal, for any further comparisons. The constructed Neighbor-Joining (NJ) tree based on Kimura’s 2 parameter distance model indicated that O. pama showed an identical phylogenetic relationship with 28 sciaenid species. The tree showed high bootstrap support values with identical topology. The phylogenetic tree constructed for O. pama exhibited high similarity with Panna microdon, Otolithoides biauritus and Pama pama. Within the three closely related species, the overall mean distance between the individuals was found to be 10.30 %. The genetic distance value was highest between Panna microdon and Pama pama (15.60 %) and the lowest genetic distance was observed between Otolithoides biauritus and Panna microdon (0.30 %). The study revealed that for the identification of respective fish species based on nucleotide sequences, Cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) genes can be used as barcodes.