This study aims to document species presence and distribution of sea cucumbers (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea) in Malaysia. Several coral reef habitats in Peninsular Malaysia, West Malaysia and Sabah, East Malaysia were selected as study sites. In summary, the present data showed the presence of 50 species of sea cucumbers from three orders and seven genera, with 34 species require further species identification. It was found that Order Aspidochirotida in general and genus Holothuria in particular were the major species classes. The most dominant species in Malaysia was Holothuria leucospilota. As many as 37 species were found in Sabah, 21 species were recorded in Peninsular Malaysia and 10 species were present in both regions. Of 15 Actinopyga species, 14 species recorded were from Sabah. These findings may be due to the extensive distribution of coral reefs and low level of marine pollution. However, the possibility of biogeography factors within and out of the Sunda Platform area cannot be ruled out. In contrast, low level of species diversity was observed in few study sites in Peninsular Malaysia especially in Langkawi Island possibly due to anthropogenic threats. Future studies including more study sites and molecular phylogeny are to be incorporated in order to obtain better view on the presence and distribution of sea cucumbers in Malaysia. ABSTRAKKajian ini bertujuan untuk mendokumentasi kewujudan dan taburan spesis timun laut (Ekinodermata: Holothuroidea) di Malaysia. Beberapa habitat batu karang di Semenanjung Malaysia, Malaysia Barat dan Sabah, Malaysia Timur telah dipilih sebagai kawasan kajian. Sebagai rumusan, data terkini menunjukkan kehadiran 50 spesis timun laut dari tiga order dan tujuh genus di seluruh Malaysia, di mana 34 spesis memerlukan pengesahan lanjut. Order Aspidokirotida amnya dan genus Holothuria khususnya menunjukkan kehadiran spesis yang tertinggi. Holothuria leucospilota secara bandingannya adalah spesis paling dominan di Malaysia. Sebanyak 37 spesis telah dijumpai di Sabah, 21 spesis direkodkan di Semenanjung Malaysia dan 10 spesis ditemui di kedua-dua kawasan tersebut. Daripada 15 spesis Actinopyga yang direkodkan, 14 spesis adalah dari Sabah. Penemuan ini mungkin disebabkan taburan batu karang yang luas dan tahap pencemaran laut yang rendah. Walau bagaimanapun, kebarangkalian faktor-faktor biogeografi di dalam atau di luar Pentas Sunda perlu diambilkira. Sebaliknya, kepelbagaian spesis di beberapa kawasan di Semenanjung Malaysia didapati rendah terutamanya di Pulau Langkawi kemungkinan disebabkan oleh ancaman manusia. Kajian lanjut melibatkan lebih banyak kawasan kajian dan filogeni molekul akan dijalankan pada masa hadapan untuk mendapatkan gambaran lebih jelas mengenai kehadiran dan taburan timun laut di Malaysia.
Here, we present the complete mitochondrial genome of Pachliopta aristolochiae , a Common Rose butterfly from Malaysia. The sequence was generated using Illumina NovaSeq 6000 sequencing platform. The mitogenome is 15,235bp long, consisting of 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNAs, two ribosomal RNAs, and two D-loop regions. The total base composition was (81.6%), with A (39.3%), T (42.3%), C (11.0%) and G (7.3%). The gene order of the three tRNAs was trnM-trnI-trnQ , which differs from the ancestral insect gene order trnI-trnQ-trnM . Phylogenetic tree analysis revealed that the sequenced Pachliopta aristolochiae in this data is closely related to Losaria neptunus (NC 037868), with highly supported ML and BI analysis. The data presented in this work can provide useful resources for other researchers to study deeper into the phylogenetic relationships of Lepidoptera and the diversification of the Pachliopta species. Also, as one of the bioindicator species, this data can be used to assess environmental changes in the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem via enviromental DNA approahes. The mitogenome of Pachliopta aristolochiae is available in GenBank under the accession number MZ781228.
Point-of-care diagnostic methods for animal species determination are critical for rapid, simple, and accurate enforcement of food labelling. PCR is the most common method for species identification. However, the requirement of using a thermal cycler created drawbacks for the PCR application, particularly in low-resource settings. Hence, in this study, a method for porcine DNA detection using recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA), coupled with nucleic acid lateral flow immunoassay (NALFIA), was developed. Porcine-specific primers targeting pig (Sus scrofa) cytochrome b gene fragments specifically amplify a 197 bp fragment of the mitochondrial gene as being visualized by 2% agarose gel and PCRD NALFIA. The reaction temperature and time were 39°C and 20 min, respectively. Herein, the specificity of the primers to porcine was confirmed after being assayed against six animal species, namely cow, goat, chicken, duck, dog, and rabbit. The porcine-specific RPA assay shows a high limit of detection of 0.01 ng/µL pork DNA. Based on the preliminary performance data obtained from this study, the potential of this method as a rapid and sensitive tool for porcine DNA detection in meat-based products is foreseen.
Species identification of sea cucumbers that have undergone body deformation due to extensive food processing e.g. beche-de-mer is difficult especially with the copresence of cases of unlabelled or mislabelled sea cucumber-based products in the markets. Therefore, a study was done to determine the species identities of processed sea cucumbers from selected Malaysian markets using concatenated gene sequences of non-protein-coding 12S mitochondrial rRNA gene and non-protein-coding 16S mitochondrial rRNA gene. Phylogenetic analyses based on the distance-based Neighbour Joining method, and the character-based methods i.e. the Maximum Parsimony method, Maximum Likelihood method, and the Bayesian Analysis method of 47 ingroup sequences representing 37 processed sea cucumber specimens, six reference samples, and four additional specimens suggested the presence of three main clusters i.e. gamat family consisting of genus Stichopus and genus Thelenota; and timun laut family comprising family Holothuriidae. A number of three gamat species i.e. Stichopus horrens, Stichopus vastus, and Thelenota anax were recorded. Meanwhile, the specimens of Holothuria (Halodeima) atra, Holothuria (Halodeima) edulis, Holothuria (Metriatyla) lessoni, Holothuria (Mertensiothuria) leucospilota, and Holothuria (Metriatyla) scabra were the five timun laut species that grouped under the family Holothuriidae. The outcomes of this study can be utilised by the enforcement agencies to monitor and overcome the issues of species substitution and product mislabelling of processed sea cucumber products in Malaysian markets.
Biological indicator species or bio-indicators are sensitive to specific environmental factors so that changes in their environment will be reflected by their incidence or abundance. In fact, aquatic insects of freshwater river and stream ecosystems have been widely used as bio-indicators to examine the species-habitat relationship with regard to the water quality of the habitat. Therefore, this study attempted to determine species richness of aquatic insects in Sungai Kawal, Johor National Park of Endau-Rompin (TNJER), Mersing, Johor, Malaysia; to identify traditional knowledge (TK) used by Jakun tribe in Kampung Peta, TNJER for maintaining rivers and streams at good level; and then to correlate the relationship between the scientific perspective and TK perspective. Aquatic insects were collected and sampled by using kick sampling technique and D-framed net. Throughout the study, a total of 618 individuals consisting of 23 families belonging to seven orders of aquatic insects were reported. The documentation of TK was done by interviewing 10 total respondents of the Jakun tribe in Kampung Peta. Physical features of Sungai Kawal were also recorded during sampling. The correlation between the scientific perspective and TK perspective regarding how the ecosystem maintenance by the Jakun tribe has contributed to an excellent habitat for the aquatic insects to breed and multiply. The number of species recorded indicated the good status of water quality of Sungai Kawal based on science and then supported by TK of the Jakun tribe of Kampung Peta. Furthermore, the findings also suggested a good correlation between the scientific perspective and TK perspective, and the significant contribution of TK of the Jakun tribe to the management of natural resources.
Cephalopods are one of the protein sources in fisheries and their unique look inspires humans in many aspects from arts to engineering. However, there was a lack of studies on cephalopod species presence and genetics in Malaysia especially in the waters of Johor. Therefore, this study aimed to document the species checklist of coastal cephalopods in Pulau Tinggi, Mersing, Johor. The sampling was limited to the coastal area of Kampung Tanjung Balang, Pulau Tinggi. The specimens of cephalopods were obtained through handpicking (for the octopus) and from the local people (for the squids). In this study, the initial species identification of the cephalopod specimens was done based on their morphological characteristics. Their tissue samples were then prepared for DNA sequencing for further species identification using cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene sequences. The morphological identification and the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) analysis results suggested their species status as Octopus laqueus, Sepioteuthis lessoniana and Uroteuthis (Photololigo) chinensis. In conclusion, this study has contributed to the latest update on the checklist of cephalopod species in Pulau Tinggi. Furthermore, adding the COI gene sequences of the local cephalopods in the GenBank database (Accession No.: MN711655-MN711658) will act as a new resource for future research on cephalopod species.
Marine microorganisms such as fungi and yeasts can adapt to extreme marine environment conditions and play different roles especially in the nutrient cycling and as bioindicator of ocean change. This study was carried out to isolate and identify fungi and yeasts associated with Holothuria (Mertensiothuria) leucospilota from Pangkor Island, Perak, Malaysia in order to determine their species richness. Two specimens of H. leucospilota were collected from Giam Island and Teluk Nipah Beach of Pangkor Island. Nine samples of fungi and ten samples of yeasts were isolated from the internal and external parts of the H. leucospilota specimens such as cuticle, tentacle, coelomic fluid, cloaca, cuvierian tubules, and surrounding sediment and seawater. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and DNA sequencing of the Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) region were applied for species identification of the microorganisms. Sequence analyses of the ITS region resulted in the identification of five genera of fungi i.e. Cladosporium, Curvularia, Polyporaceae, Acremonium, and Penicillium; and four genera of yeasts i.e. Sterigmatomyces, Pichia, Debaryomyces, and Candida with some of them could be identified up to the species level. The findings have significantly contributed to the recent information on the checklist of fungi and yeasts isolated from the H. leucospilota specimens from Pangkor Island.
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