Molecular Identification of Stingrays (Dasyatidae) from Gresik, East Java

Abstract

Stingrays (Dasyatidae) are the Elasmobranchii or cartilaginous fish. In Indonesia, stingrays have long been one of the fish resources with high economic value with a fairly high export value. High exploitation and lack of conservation efforts can lead to reduced stingray stocks in some waters in Indonesia. Identification of stingray species is necessary to determine their conservation status as a conservation effort by maintaining genetic resources, species and ecosystems of stingrays. The method used for fish identification is very fast and accurate. DNA barcoding is a new identification technique with a molecular approach that provides an alternative for the fast, accurate, and unambiguous identification of an organism. The purpose of this study was to identify stingray species that landed on Delegan Gresik Beach, East Java to determine the relationship between species through phylogenetic trees. The analysis and reconstruction of the phylogenetic tree were carried out by MEGA X software with the neighbour-joining algorithm and the Kimura-2 parameter model with a bootstrap value of 1000. The results obtained 2 species of stingrays, Telatrygon zugei and Neotrygon kuhlii. Phylogenetic analysis showed a close relationship between the two species with a genetic distance of 0.185. The conservation status of the Telatrygon zugei species is Near Threatened (NT) category and the Neotrygon kuhlii species is in the Data Deficient (DD) category.