22 Species of Scomdridae in Taiwan Waters

Twenty-two species of the family Scombridae, namely Acanthocybium solandri, Auxis rochei, A. thazard, Euthynnus affinis, Katsuwonus pelamis, Gymnosarda unicolor, Rastrelliger kanagurta, R. faughni, Sarda orientalis, Scomber japonicus, S. australasicus, Scomberomorus commerson, S. koreanus, S. guttatus, S. niphonius, S. sinensis, Thunnus alalunga, T. albacares, T. obesus, T. thynnus, T. tonggol, and Grammatorcynus bilineatus, were collected from the coastal waters of Taiwan. G. bilineatus is a newly recorded species from the coastal waters of Taiwan.

Sequencing of Cytochrome B Gene

The entire 1140 bp sequence of cytochrome b gene for the 22 species of the family Scombridae was sequenced and aligned. The nucleotide composition of the 22 sequences is as follows: C content (30.09-34.74%) > T content (26.14-30.00%) > A content (24.21-25.53%) > G content (14.30-15.70%). The transition/transversion ratio ranged from 1.0230 to 5.1667. The pairwise genetic distances of the 22 sequences using Kimura 2-parameter model ranged from 0.008 to 0.229. The phylogenetic tree was constructed using genetic distances by neighbor-joining method. From this molecular tree, species of the same genus were clustered together, then the genus Thunnus was firstly clustered with the genus Sarda, then clustered with a clade including genus Euthynnus, Katsuwonus and Auxis, followed by a clade with genus Acanthocybium and Gymnosarda, genus Scomberomorus, a clade with genus Rastrelliger and Scomber, and genus Grammatorcynus.

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