Project description:The tomato hind, Cephalopholis sonnerati, is a bottom-dwelling coral reef fish, which is widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific and Red Sea. C. sonnerati also features complex social structures and behaviour mechanisms. Here, we present a high-quality, chromosome-level genome assembly for C. sonnerati that was derived using PacBio sequencing and Hi-C technologies. A 1043.66 Mb genome with an N50 length of 2.49 Mb was assembled, produced containing 795 contigs assembled into 24 chromosomes. Overall, 97.2% of the complete BUSCOs were identified in the genome. A total of 26,130 protein-coding genes were predicted, of which 94.26% were functionally annotated. Evolutionary analysis revealed that C. sonnerati diverged from its common ancestor with E. lanceolatus and E. akaara approximately 41.7 million years ago. In addition, comparative genome analyses indicated that the expanded gene families were highly enriched in the sensory system. Finally, we found the tissue-specific expression of 8108 genes. We found that these tissue-specific genes were highly enriched in the brain. In brief, the high-quality, chromosome-level reference genome will provide a valuable genome resource for studies of the genetic conservation, resistance breeding, and evolution of C. sonnerati.
Project description:Darkfin hind, Cephalopholis urodeta, belongs to the subfamily Epinephelinae. It is one of the most important fish species in coral-reef ecosystem. In this study, the complete mitochondrial (mt) genome of C. urodeta has been determined. It was 16,592 bp in length and contained 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, 22 transfer RNA genes and 2 non-coding regions. The mitogenome sequence of C. urodeta shared 94% and 92% similarity to that of C. sonnerati and C.sexmaculata, respectively. Phylogenetic tree was made based on the concatenated sequences of 12 protein-coding genes on mtH-strand. All the results provide insights into the evolution in the subfamily Epinephelinae.
Project description:Coney (Cephalopholis fulva) sampled from recreational and commercial vessels along the southeastern coast of the United States in 1998-2013 (n = 353) were aged by counting opaque bands on sectioned sagittal otoliths. Analysis of otolith edge type (opaque or translucent) revealed that annuli formed in January-June with a peak in April. Coney were aged up to 19 years, and the largest fish measured 430 mm in total length (TL). The weight-length relationship was ln(W) = 3.03 × ln(TL) - 18.05 (n = 487; coefficient of determination [r (2)] = 0.91), where W = whole weight in kilograms and and TL = total length in millimeters. Mean observed sizes at ages 1, 3, 5, 10, and 19 years were 225, 273, 307, 338, and 400 mm TL, respectively. The von Bertalanffy growth equation for coney was Lt = 377 (1 - e ((-0.20(t+3.53)))). Natural mortality (M) estimated by Hewitt and Hoenig's longevity-based method which integrates all ages was 0.22. Age-specific M values, estimated with the method of Charnov and others, were 0.40, 0.30, 0.26, 0.22, and 0.20 for ages 1, 3, 5, 10, and 19, respectively.