Abstract
The present study was designed for testing the utility of Sox14 gene sequences to identify the molecular variations among three mullet fishs (M. seheli, L. carinata and M. cephalus) comparatively with COI barcoding system. DNA polymorphism within each estimated genus was presented as single nucleotide polymorphism, haplotype diversity and nucleotide diversity. Overall distance values within evaluated Mugilidae fish samples were 0.122 and 0.007 based on COI and Sox14 sequence variations respectively.
The results indicated that M. seheli is distantly related from M. cephalus and L. carinata. The M. cephalus is closely related to L. carinata. Mugilidae evolutionary variations were estimated also comparatively with other ray finned fishes. Both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA markers consistently separated the estimated fish species. The genetic information based on mitochondrial COI and nuclear Sox14 genes has a value for the future fish conservation strategy.