DNA Barcoding of Panulirus homarus from Oman and Yemen

Abstract

Panulirus homarus is one of the economically important lobster species consumed all over the World. Oman is one of the largest producers and exporter of this species. However, due to uncontrolled fishing concerns have been raised about decline population of P. homarus. Despite such ecological threat, information about taxonomic status of this species is lacking. Keeping this in mind in this study we identified P. homarus specimen (n= 25) collected from five different locations using DNA barcoding techniques. Utility of this technique for the identification of P. homarus is shown for the first time from Oman. Our study showed that specimens collected in this study indeed belonged to P. homarus. However, five samples showed high intraspecies (12%) nucleotide divergence and NJ clustering analysis showed that these samplesbranched out to form distinct clade, when compared to the sequence of other P. homarus. Therefore, these samples indeed represent a cryptic species within P. homarus that needs to be studied further.