GENETIC STUDY ON SPHYRNA LEWINI FROM QINGDAO COASTAL WATERS

The scalloped hammerhead shark, Sphyrna lewini, is a small to medium-sized shark that circumglobally distributes along continental margins and oceanic islands in tropical waters. It has been listed as one globally endangered species by IUCN because of continuous resource recession by habitat degradation and influence of human activities. The present study analyzed mitochondrial DNA sequences of a total of 23 specimens collected from Qingdao coastal waters, and found 13 variable sites in the 548 bp fragments without indel/deletion. These polymorphic sites defined 7 haplotypes, 3 of them (Hap1, Hap3 and Hap5) were different individuals and the other 4 haplotypes were unique for one individual. Moderate haplotype diversity and low nucleotide diversity were detected for Qd population. There was no genetic differentiation between Qd and other reported two populations, and F_st were –0.0571 and –0.0328, respec-tively. Haplotypes from Chinese coastal waters were clustered into two clades with haplotypes from the Pacific and Indian Ocean by the topology of the NJ tree rooted with the out-group S. zygaena. More attentions should be paid to resource protection for Sphyrna lewini with, and the endangered species (Sphyrna lewini) from Chinese coastal waters should be considered one population, which need greater resource protection because of low genetic diversity.