Classification of sharks in the Egyptian Mediterranean waters using morphological and DNA barcoding approaches.
PLoS ONE. 2011-11-02; 6(11): e27001
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027001
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The identification of species constitutes the first basic step in phylogenetic
studies, biodiversity monitoring and conservation. DNA barcoding, i.e. the
sequencing of a short standardized region of DNA, has been proposed as a new tool
for animal species identification. The present study provides an update on the
composition of shark in the Egyptian Mediterranean waters off Alexandria, since
the latest study to date was performed 30 years ago, DNA barcoding was used in
addition to classical taxonomical methodologies. Thus, 51 specimen were DNA
barcoded for a 667 bp region of the mitochondrial COI gene. Although DNA
barcoding aims at developing species identification systems, some phylogenetic
signals were apparent in the data. In the neighbor-joining tree, 8 major clusters
were apparent, each of them containing individuals belonging to the same species,
and most with 100% bootstrap value. This study is the first to our knowledge to
use DNA barcoding of the mitochondrial COI gene in order to confirm the presence
of species Squalus acanthias, Oxynotus centrina, Squatina squatina, Scyliorhinus
canicula, Scyliorhinus stellaris, Mustelus mustelus, Mustelus punctulatus and
Carcharhinus altimus in the Egyptian Mediterranean waters. Finally, our study is
the starting point of a new barcoding database concerning shark composition in
the Egyptian Mediterranean waters (Barcoding of Egyptian Mediterranean Sharks
[BEMS],
http://www.boldsystems.org/views/projectlist.php?%20Fish%20%28FishBOL%29).