Inference of phylogenetics and evolution of Epinephelus septemfasciatus and 48 other species of Epinephelus genus using mitochondrial CO1 fragment sequences.

Fragments of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (CO1) gene of Epinephlus septemfasciatus were amplified and compared with 48 other species of Epinephelus genus collected from NCBI to construct the phylogenetic relationships. Nucleotide sequences of 582 base pair of CD1 gene revealed 231 polymorphic sites. Phylogeny tree was constructed based on maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods. E. septemfasciatus did not show any distinct status in the phylogenetic trees, and its distribution was found to be closely related with that of Kuroshio Current indicating it as a warm-water species. Some small clades were found corresponding to limited geographic distribution such as South China Sea, South African Sea and West Indian Sea. Genetic distances were small between pair comparisons of several species which may be attributed to hybridizations. According to phylogenetics, present distributions and currents direction, the groupers likely originated from western Pacific tropic areas and dispersed into Atlantic crossing sea area of South Africa.