Genetic Diversity and Population Connectivity of the Greenblotch Parrotfish (Scarus quoyi Valenciennes, 1840) within Southern Mindanao Inferred from Mitochondrial 16S rRNA

A genetic assessment was done on the greenblotch parrotfish (Scarus quoyi Valenciennes, 1840) in three bays within southern Mindanao, Philippines. Mitochondrial 16S rRNA recovered 12 haplotypes, one of which was dominant in all sites. Despite the reported phenotypic variation from previous assessments, there was neither evidence of genetic structure (global Φst = 0.012, p = 0.13) nor isolation by distance (r = 0.05, p = 0.50). Genetic diversity was also low (Hglobal = 0.472; πglobal = 0.13%), with ~ 77% of haplotype diversity accounted for with just 69 samples. While connectivity suggests continuous larval exchange within southern Mindanao owing to the species’ high dispersal potential, low genetic diversity implies reduced effective population size, probably due to recent bottlenecks (e.g. overfishing, habitat destruction). Although this study provides baseline genetic information on the local population, inferences are considerably limited by the genetic marker used and the spatial scale under investigation. A thorough understanding of the population will be possible if the entire habitat range of the species is assessed using markers with high resolving power, such as the hypervariable mitochondrial control region, microsatellites, or genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).