In Mekong delta, C. lucius is one of endangered and economically important species in Channidae family with high potential for domestication in aquaculture and postoperative medicinal applications in wound healing and reducing discomfort. In the wild, population sizes of this species have been declined due to overfishing, habitat loss and degradation because of human activities. In order to effectively conserve and manage this species, vital information on relevant population genetics is required to provide spatial conservation value of the species to prevent the species extinction. On the contrary, in spite of their economic and scientific importance to date, studies are limited on the genetic diversity of C. lucius. The present study was conducted to assess genetic diversity of C.lucius by using ISSR markers (Inter-Simple Sequence Repeats).
Samples were collected from four locations (Ca Mau, Can Tho-Hau Giang, Kien Giang and Long An) purposively, 20 to 30 individuals per location totaling to 110 individuals. Through optimization of ISSR markers, eight highly polymorphic markers were used to quantify levels of genetic diversity of different C. lucius populations in the Mekong delta which yielded 75 bands with the size range from 500 bp to 2000 bp. Results showed high levels of genetic diversity in the C.lucius four populations with unexpected heterozygosity (0.252-0.286), number of effective allele (1.428-1.477), Shannon index (0.365-0.412) and the percentage of polymorphic loci (68-77)% (table 1) . Nei’s genetic distance and principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) indicated low genetic differentiation (0.021 - 0.029) with no clusters among the populations (figure1).
This study provides genetic diversity information that can be used for conservation of C.lucius and recommends among others control of anthropogenic activities to maintain this current genetic diversity.