Preliminary study: Species identification of Rasbora sumatrana through the cytochrome oxidase subunit I DNA barcoding marker

Abstract

Rasbora sumatrana or locally known as “seluang” in Malaysia is a pelagic fish. Unlike its other congeneric species is not categorized as an ornamental fish. Samples of the presumed R. sumatrana was obtained from an abandoned swamp in Hulu Langat, Selangor. Initial identification of the samples was conducted based on meristic and morphometric analyses, which showed congruence with R. sumatrana when referenced to FishBase. To complement the analysis, a molecular study was conducted based on the cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) DNA barcoding marker. Confirmation of the species identity was done by BLAST results with six voucher sequences of R. sumatrana and other Rasbora species from GenBank. The relationship of Rasbora spp. was analysed by phylogenetic and Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD) analysis. Contradicting with morphological and meristic data analysis, both Maximum-Likelihood and Maximum Parsimony phylogenetic tree showed that the currently studied samples did not cluster with R. sumatrana. We believe that they may represent cryptic diversity and are tentatively classified as Rasbora spp.