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Genetic Relatedness of Different Seahorse Species Inferred By
Cytochrome Oxidase 1 Gene
Mariatul Afiqah binti Mohd Al-Hatta
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Mohd Effendy Abd. Wahid
Bachelor of Applied Science (Fisheries)
School of Fisheries and Aquaculture Sciences
A study of genetic relatedness and identification of four different seahorse species
kept at Akuatrop’s hatchery was conducted on Hippocampus barbouri, H. comes, H.
kuda and H. spinosissimus using partial mitochondrial Cytochrome Oxidase Ӏ (COӀ)
gene marker. All 20 samples of seahorse were collected from Malaysia and Indonesia.
These seahorses were successfully identified via molecular method. BLAST analysis
done after PCR amplification and sequencing had confirmed the partial fragment of
CO1 in each sample. Hence, a phylogenetic analysis had resulted in the distribution of
each species into 4 different clusters. A calculated average of pairwise distance found
that H. kuda is more closely related to H. spinosissimus with similarity of 1% while H.
barbouri and H. comes is more closely related to each other with similarity less than
1%. The comparison between the pairwise distances showed is assumed to have
diverged. Therefore, findings had successfully determined the variations between
those seahorse species which can aid in conservation purposes.
667 | UMT UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH DAY 2018