Abstract
Fish resources in the Red sea habitat lack accurate documentation and identification. In addition, the evolution of these biological resources is unclear. Nuclear Sox14 gene sequence analysis has been used to explore genetic variations and phylogenetic relations (using Maximum Likelihood and Neighbor-Joining methods) among various teleosts fishes belonging to five fish families (Scaridae, Labridae, Serranidae, Mugilidae and Cichlidae). The detected DNA polymorphisms among evaluated fish taxa were informative for inferring the evolutionary variations in these aquatic biological resources.
Sequence conservation values were relatively high within estimated fish family. The relatedness among evaluated fish species was presented and discussed. Cichlidae fishes are distantly related to both Scaridae and Labridae. The relationship between Mugilidae and both Scaridae and Labridae was nearly similar. The distance between Serranidae and Cichlidae was higher than between Serranidae and Mugilidae. Reconstruction of such phylogenetic relations based on Sox14 gene sequence variations was informative for understanding the evolution of these aquatic biological resources. More molecular markers (mitochondrial vs. nuclear DNA) should be developed for reconstructing the true phylogenetic relations among the fish taxa.