Molecular Phylogeny Reconstruction of Grouper (Serranidae: Epinephelinae) at Northern Part of Bird’s Head Seascape - Papua Inferred from COI Gene

Grouper is one of the most economically important fishes with various morphological forms and characteristics, meaning it is often difficult to identify species and distinguish between life stages, sometimes leading to morphological misidentification. Therefore, identification using a molecular deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA) approach was needed as an alternative means to identify closely related species. This study aims to determine the molecular phylogeny of grouper from the northern part of the Bird’s Head Seascape of Papua. The DNA sequence of each cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene was used to study the molecular relationship among closely related species of grouper. The results showed that there were 16 Epinephelinae that have been compared to a gene bank (National Centre for Biotechnology Information, NCBI) in the sequence length of 623 base pairs. The closest genetic distance was found between Cephalopholis miniata and Cephalopholis sexmaculata (0.036), while the furthest genetic distance was observed between Plectropomus laevis and Cephalopholis spiloparaea (0.247). This finding was further reinforced by the morphological characters of each species. This finding highlighted that five genera were represented as a monophyletic group (clade), i.e., Epinephelus, Cephalopholis, Plectropomus, Saloptia and Variola.