Morphological and Genetic Variation in the Multi-colored Jellyfish Catostylus townsendi along the Coast of Trat Province Suggests Possible Cryptic Diversity
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Abstract
Multi-colored jellyfish that bloomed along the coast of Trat Province were classified as Catostylus townsendi based on morphological data alone. Currently, an increasing number of studies on C. townsendi genetics have led to the verification of the species and the investigation of its genetic connectivity. Therefore, this study aimed to confirm species identification and investigate genetic connectivity between Thai and other populations of multi-colored jellyfish by morphological character and COI (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I) nucleotide sequence analyses. In addition, pairwise genetic distances and phylogenetic analyses were also examined. Morphological evaluation of 21 jellyfish (representing 7 groups defined by color variation on bells and oral arms), collected from Klongson Beach, Laemklud, Muang, Trat Province showed that the 7 morphotypes were morphologically similar with comparable key morphological characters, namely oral arm length, number and size of lappets, and rhopalium shape, and were classified to the species C. townsendi. The COI sequence variation of 18 jellyfish samples was low consistence with a mean pairwise genetic distance (K2P) (0.19±0.09%). The maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree revealed that multi-colored jellyfish were in the same clade as C. townsendi from the east of The South China Sea, strongly supported by a 100 percent bootstrap value. Morphological and genetic results confirmed the species identification of multi-colored jellyfish and suggested the possibility of cryptic species detection within C. townsendi distribution. This suggestion is important for biodiversity assessment and conservation.
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King Mongkut's Agricultural Journal
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