[OANNES Foro] Identification of seagrasses in the gut of a marine herbivorous fish using DNA barcoding and visual inspection techniques

[Mario Cabrejos]

Journal of Fish Biology
Article first published online: 20 JUN 2011
DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-8649.2011.02999.x

Identification of seagrasses in the gut of a marine herbivorous fish using DNA barcoding and visual inspection techniques
A. Chelsky Budarf1,2, D. D. Burfeind1,2,*, W. K. W. Loh1,3, I. R. Tibbetts1
1 School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia2 Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, Qld 4222, Australia 3 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Bond University, Gold Coast, Qld 4229, Australia. Correspondence: D. D. Burfeind,  +617 5552 9257; email: d.burfeind en griffith.edu.au
Abstract

Traditional visual diet analysis techniques were compared with DNA barcoding in juvenile herbivorous rabbitfish Siganus fuscescens collected in Moreton Bay, Australia, where at least six species of seagrass occur. The intergenic spacer trnH-psbA, suggested as the optimal gene for barcoding angiosperms, was used for the first time to identify the seagrass in fish guts. Four seagrass species and one alga were identified visually from gut contents; however, there was considerable uncertainty in visual identification with 38 of 40 fish having unidentifiable plant fragments in their gut. PCR and single-strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP) were able to discriminate three seagrass families from visually cryptic gut contents. While effective in identifying cryptic gut content to family level, this novel method is likely to be most efficient when paired with visual identification techniques.
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