Abstract:
This study aimed to determine the COI genetic characteristic of whale sharks from Cenderawasih Bay. We collected and analysed 28 tissue samples of whale sharks were collected from several sites in Cenderawasih Bay. The tissue samples were extracted to obtaind whole genome then amplified and sequenced to obtained COI nukleotide. Based on Blast and DNA Barcoding, we know that all individual of whale shark in the bay is Rhincodon typus. We identified that COI gene of whale shark have fragment length in 669 bp with nucleotide frekuency for A, T/U, C and G is 25%, respectively. The study showed that the genetic diversity of R. typus in Cenderawasih Bay was low. We found only 1 polymorphic site and 2 haplotypes, which has haplotype and nucleotide diversity were 0,137 and 0,0002, respectively. The phylogenetic analysis showed that the whale shark in Cenderawasih Bay was closely related to Indo-Pacific population that they might have same ancestral.
