University of Isfahan Taxonomy and Biosystematics 3115-9001 14 51 2022 08 23 Phylogenetic Position of the Barnacle Chelonibia testudinaria Linnaeus, 1758 from the Persian Gulf تبارزایی جمعیت گونۀ کشتی‌‌چسبChelonibia testudinaria Linnaeus 1758 از خلیج فارس 69 76 27220 10.22108/tbj.2022.134207.1205 EN Nooshin Ospid MSc Student, Department of Marine Biology, Faculty of Marine Science and Technology, University of Hormozgan, Bandar Abbas, Iran Yaser Fatemi Ph. D. Graduate of Marine Biology, Faculty of Marine Science and Technology, University of Hormozgan, Bandar Abbas, Iran Mohammad Sharif Ranjbar Associate Professor, Department of Marine Biology, Faculty of Marine Science and Technology, University of Hormozgan, Bandar Abbas, Iran Adnan Shahdadi Associate Professor, Department of Marine Biology, Faculty of Marine Sciences and Technology, University of Hormozgan, Bandar Abbas, Iran Journal Article 2022 07 05 Chelonibia testudinaria, a globally widespread epibiont barnacle, has been the subject of previous phylogenetic studies which revealed that specimens of this species fall into three separate clades. One clade includes specimens from the Eastern Pacific, another encompasses specimens from the West and East Atlantic, and the third contains specimens from the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia. The current study aimed to investigate the phylogenetic position of C. testudinaria specimens from the Persian Gulf using the mitochondrial COX1 gene. The results indicated that specimens from the Persian Gulf clustered with those from Southeast Asia, including Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan, in a well-supported clade. This finding suggests that the widespread distribution of this species in the Indo-West Pacific may have been facilitated by sea turtles. Introduction The Indo-West Pacific region is renowned for its high marine biodiversity (Roberts et al., 2002; Wafar et al., 2011). Landmasses such as the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra Island have divided this oceanic region into two areas: east and west. Phylogenetic studies on species complexes (e.g., Ragionieri et al., 2009; Lai et al., 2010; Bowen et al., 2016) have confirmed genetic isolation between the two sides of these land barriers in the Indo-West Pacific. Chelonibia testudinaria Linnaeus, 1758, a globally widespread epibiont barnacle, is found attached to the carapaces of crabs and sea turtles (Rawson et al., 2003). Previous phylogenetic studies have shown that specimens of this species fall into three separate clades: one with specimens from the Eastern Pacific, another including specimens from the West and East Atlantic, and a third with specimens from the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia (Cheang et al., 2013). This species is also common in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman (Shahdadi et al., 2014). Consequently, this study aimed to investigate the phylogenetic position of C. testudinaria from the Persian Gulf using a mitochondrial marker. Materials and Methods Specimens of the swimming crab, Portunus segnis, were collected by a local fisherman from the coastal area of Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf, Iran. C. testudinaria specimens were removed from the carapaces of two crabs and preserved in 96% ethanol. Genomic DNA was isolated using the Puregene method. A fragment of the mitochondrial protein-coding gene cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COX1) was amplified by polymerase chain reactions (PCRs). To amplify a 670 bp segment of the COX1 gene, corresponding to the commonly used barcoding region, the Folmer primers LCO1490 and HCO2198 (Folmer, 1994) were utilized. In addition to the sequences from the Persian Gulf specimens, homologous sequences of this species from GenBank (NCBI) were also included in the phylogenetic analyses. Chelonibia caretta was used as an outgroup for this analysis. Phylogenetic tree reconstruction was performed using a Maximum Likelihood (ML) algorithm with the software raxmlGUI (Silvestro & Michalak, 2012). Results and Conclusion In total, 58 sequences of C. testudinaria were analyzed in this phylogenetic study. Nine sequences were obtained from the Persian Gulf, while the remaining were sourced from GenBank and originated from various regions. In line with previous studies (Rawson et al., 2009; Cheang et al., 2013), the ML tree identified three distinct clades for C. testudinaria globally: the Eastern Pacific clade, the Atlantic clade (including western and Mediterranean sequences), and the West Pacific clade (encompassing sequences from Southeast Asia). The results showed that specimens from the Persian Gulf clustered with those from Southeast Asia, including Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan, in a well-supported clade. The widespread distribution of this species in the Indo-West Pacific region appears to have been facilitated by sea turtles.

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