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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 61(6)

Using DNA barcodes to connect adults and early life stages of marine fishes from the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico: potential in fisheries management

Martha Valdez-Moreno A C , Lourdes Vásquez-Yeomans A , Manuel Elías-Gutiérrez A , Natalia V. Ivanova B and Paul D. N. Hebert B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Avenida Centenario km 5.5, Chetumal 77014, Quintana Roo, México.

B Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada.

C Corresponding author. Email: mvaldez@ecosur.mx

Marine and Freshwater Research 61(6) 655-671 https://doi.org/10.1071/MF09222
Submitted: 7 September 2009  Accepted: 11 December 2009   Published: 25 June 2010

Abstract

Barcoding has proven a useful tool in the rapid identification of all life stages of fish species. Such information is of critical importance for fisheries management and conservation, especially in high-diversity regions, such as Mexico’s marine waters, where more than 2200 species occur. The present study reports the barcode analysis of 1392 specimens from the Yucatan Peninsula, corresponding to 610 adults and juveniles, 757 larvae and 25 eggs, representing 181 species (179 teleosts and 2 rays), 136 genera and 74 families. Barcoding results revealed major range extensions and overlooked taxa, including three sympatric species of Albula (one likely undescribed) and a new taxon of Floridichthys. In total, six species of eggs and 34 species of larvae were identified through their barcode match with adults. These cases enabled the first discrimination of the larvae of four species of Eucinostomus, and new information about spawning locality and time was obtained from egg records for the hogfish, Lachnolaimus maximus, which is one of the most commercially important species in the Mexican Caribbean. Also, barcodes revealed mistakes in species recognition during a sport-fish contest. In the future, barcodes will help avoid similar errors and protect rare or endangered species, and will aid regulation of fisheries quotas.

Additional keywords: COI, coxI, Cytochrome c oxidase, identification, mitochondrial DNA.


Acknowledgements

We thank Carolina Quintal Lizama and Dalia Cazarez for their dedicated work as collectors and parataxonomists. Roberto Herrera and José Angel Cohuo also assisted in field collections. Most specimen photographs were taken by Humberto Bahena Basave and José Angel Cohuo. Juan Jacobo Schmitter Soto assisted with the identification of adult fish, while Maria Eugenia Vega and Víctor García from CINVESTAV Mérida kindly donated specimens from the Yucatan coast and helped with their identification. Margarita Ornelas and Uriel Ordóñez from CINVESTAV aided with some larval identifications. Part of this work was carried out during a sabbatical leave of Martha Valdez-Moreno and Manuel Elías-Gutiérrez at the Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph. We thank all members of this Department, especially Tyler Zemlak, Dirk Steinke and Gregory Downs, for discussions about molecular techniques. NOAA/UM project 517/04 supported the larval collections, while María del Carmen García, director of the National Park ‘Arrecifes de Xcalak’, assisted with the permits required to work in this area. All of the larval collections comprise part of the Ph.D. Thesis of Lourdes Vásquez-Yeomans, supported by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT Grant 38516). DNA sequencing was carried out at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, University of Guelph, supported by grants to PDNH from Genome Canada through the Ontario Genomics Institute, and from NSERC. Part of this work was supported through Grant HE009 from Comisión Nacional Para el Uso y Conservación de la Biodiversidad (CONABIO). This paper represents a contribution from the Mexican Barcode of Life (MEXBOL) network. Comments from two anonymous referees improved the initial draft of this manuscript.


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