Investigating larval variability: Morphological and genetic analysis of Stage-I phyllosoma in five species of spiny lobsters (Palinuridae) from the southeast coast of India

Jeena, N S and Anbarasu, M and Rahuman, Summaya and Thomas, Tinto and Sebastian, Wilson and Nazar, A K A (2024) Investigating larval variability: Morphological and genetic analysis of Stage-I phyllosoma in five species of spiny lobsters (Palinuridae) from the southeast coast of India. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of India, 66 (2). pp. 24-31. ISSN 0025-3146

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Abstract

Species identification of the planktonic phyllosoma larvae of spiny lobsters is a matter of conjecture due to their virtually uniform appearance, shared distribution ranges, and diminutive size. This study compares the morphological characteristics of the Stage-1 phyllosoma of five species of spiny lobsters, namely Panulirus homarus, P. versicolor, P. ornatus, P. polyphagus and P. longipes longipes, which were allowed to spawn under captivity at CMFRI-Mandapam Regional Centre, Tamil Nadu, India. Additionally, the effectiveness of a novel primer pair that explicitly targets the hypervariable D-loop or control region (CR) of mitochondrial DNA, resulting in improved resolution of phyllosoma identification, is described. Closely related morphological characters, barring a few, were observed amongst the larvae. The primer pair was tested on larvae and adults of all species, sequence variation in their CR was examined, and evolutionary relationships were compared with the 16S rRNA (16S) and Cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) sequences from previous studies. The lowest K2P genetic distance value based on the partial sequences of CR was found between P. homarus and P. ornatus (29.41%), while the highest was between P. longipes longipes and P. polyphagus (54.46 %). The results demonstrate the potential utility of the control region as an additional molecular marker that can be considered alongside protein-coding genes to provide more consistent phylogenetic signals. This region is also favoured for studying population structure and phylogeography in Palinuridae, and the new primers are expected to complement these studies.

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