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Although the bronze featherback Notopterus notopterus is an important fish in South-East Asia, the population structure has not been investigated. In this study, genetic diversity and population structure of the bronze featherback were examined using nucleotide sequence analysis of the mitochondrial DNA control region for 332 fish collected from Tonle Sap Lake and the Mekong River in Cambodia. The average nucleotide diversity (π) of all samples was 0.033, and the Mekong River samples had higher nucleotide diversity (0.034) than Tonle Sap Lake samples (0.028). The nucleotide diversity between the lake and river samples varied from 0.029 to 0.037. The genetic differentiation between the river and lake populations was also supported by the pairwise F-statistic values and hierarchical analysis of molecular variance, indicating that the Tonle Sap Lake population is genetically isolated from the population in main stream of the Mekong River. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the tandem repeat sequence segments in the control region of mitochondrial DNA of bronze featherback Notopterus notopterus. Bronze featherback Notopterus notopterus is known as an important commercial fish in Mekong river in Cambodia. The control region of its mitochondrial DNA has been used as a genetic marker in the population studies of several organisms including fish because of its fast evolutionary rate and maternal inheritance. The segments of tandem repeat sequence occasionally make primer design for polymerase chain reactions and arrangement of sequences difficult.