Genetic distance and phylogenetic studies of two Indian snakehead and one carp fish species

Aim: To study genetic distance and phylogenetic relationship of two different stock of three important fish species, i.e., Channa stewartu, C. striatus and Labeo gonius of Assam. Methodology: Three fish species, namely Channa stewarti/, C. striatus and Labeo gonius were collected from two beeis, i.e., Thekera and Samaguri beeis of Assam, India. Standard procedures were followed for isolation of their DNAand sequencing. Thereafter, genetic distance and diversity and phylogenetic studies of three species were calculated using computer based softwares ClustalW and MEGA6. Results : In the present study, the pairwise genetic distance of three fish species ranged from 0 to 20.436. No pairwise distance was found between two stocks at different locations Thekera and Samaguri beeis of Assam for each of three species C. stewartii, C. striatus and L. gonius. The highest values (20.436) of pairwise distance were found between C. striatus and L. gonius population of Thekera beel; Thekera and Samaguri beels; and L. gonius population of the Thekera and Samaguri beeis. The overall average distance for the two populations of three fish species was 15.387. No significant intraspecific difference was observed in the phylogenetic studies of two stocks of three fish species. Interpretation : The overall average distance (15.387) of three fish species could be attributed to genetic distance from each other. The high value of coefficient of differentiation (1.000) for three fish species from two stocks indicated that all the species were different from each other. Overall genetic and phylogenetic studies revealed that C. stewartii, C. striatus and L. gonius. were less differentiated from each other.