Morphometric and Molecular Studies on Crabs from Ratnagiri, India

Portunid crabs constitute an important catch of the trawlers operating along the west coast of India. Commonly landed species include Charybdis feriatus, Portunus pelagicus and Portunus sanguinolentus which are valued as seafood and are in great demand both domestically and internationally. Despite their prominence in the local catches, they have not been characterized on the basis of their morphological and/or molecular traits. The present study deals with morphological and molecular variations in the three species along Ratnagiri based on conventional and truss morphometrics, and DNA barcoding of the Cytochrome b (Cyt b) mitochondrial DNA. Multivariate techniques such as principal components analysis (PCA), factor analysis (FA) and canonical variate analysis (CVA) were employed to landmark data obtained from both the dorsal and ventral aspects of the three species. The work is expected to be particularly useful to the students, researchers and fisheries management professionals.