ARPHA Preprints, doi: 10.3897/arphapreprints.e101467

Genetic diversity among sea snakes of the genus Hydrophis (Elapidae, Reptilia) in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman

Seyyed Saeed Hosseinian Yousefkhani^‡, Amaal Yasser^§, Murtada Naser^|, Mohsen Rezaie-Atagholipour^¶, Majid Askari Hesni^#, Fariba Yousefabadi^¤, Eskandar Rastegar-Pouyani^«

‡ Ph.D of Animal Biosystematics *(Herpetology)*, Department of Animal Science, School of Biology Damghan University, Damghan, Iran, Damghan, Iran, Iran§ Marine Science Centre, University of Basrah, Basra, Iraq, Basrah, Iraq| University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq¶ Environmental Management Office, Qeshm Free Area Organization, Qeshm Island, P. O. Box 7951614465, Hormozgan Province, Iran, Qeshm, Iran# Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman Province, Iran), kerman, Iran¤ Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran, mashhad, Iran« Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran, Sabzevar, Iran

Corresponding author: Seyyed Saeed Hosseinian Yousefkhani ( s.hosseinian@du.ac.ir )

Corresponding author: Eskandar Rastegar-Pouyani ( rastegarpouyani45@gmail.com )

This is an open access preprint distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Yousefkhani SSH, Yasser A, Naser M, Rezaie-Atagholipour M, Askari Hesni M, Yousefabadi F, Rastegar-Pouyani E (2023) Genetic diversity among sea snakes of the genus Hydrophis (Elapidae, Reptilia) in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. ARPHA Preprints. https://doi.org/10.3897/arphapreprints.e101467

Abstract

The Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman are two important marine ecosystems in southern Iran with rich biodiversity. Sea snakes of the genus Hydrophis are important components of the animal diversity in this area. Ten species of the genus Hydrophis have been distinguished in the region and their genetic structure was compared with other populations in south and southeast Asia. We found that five species (including H. platurus, H. cyanocinctus, H. spiralis, H. schistosus and H. gracilis, H. lapemiodes) show high genetic similarity with conspecific populations in the Indian Ocean and Australia. Hydrophis curtus from southern Iran shows a high level of differentiation from other populations in Sri Lanka and Australia. Hydrophis curtus in our study shows variation and the Iranian samples of the species of 0.6% and 6% genetic distance from other populations in Sri Lanka for 16S and COI gene fragments, respectively. This means the variability between Iranian and southeast Asia populations may reveal new genetic lineages and the need of further morphological evaluations to re-evaluate their taxonomic position.

Keywords

True sea snake, Indian Ocean, microhabitat adaptation, dispersal, variation.