BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Fisheries, Aquaculture and Living Resources
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1577263
This article is part of the Research TopicGenetics and Genomics applied to Fisheries and AquacultureView all 9 articles
Combining shells and sequences to untangle taxonomy of abalone in Sabah, Malaysia
Provisionally accepted
Nur-Syahirah Mamat1
Yuzine Esa1*
Julia Sigwart2
Siti Nor3
Nur Leena W.S. Wong1Nazia Abdul Kadar4
Fabrizio Marcondes Machado5
Siti Amalia Aisyah Abdul-Halim1Ahmad Ammar Akhyar Aminarrashid1- 1Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Seri Kembangan, Malaysia
- 2Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- 3Institute of Marine Biotechnology, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu Darul Iman, Malaysia
- 4Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
- 5Institute of Biology, State University of Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
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Abalone, herbivorous marine molluscs of significant economic and ecological importance, exhibit considerable morphological plasticity. This poses a challenge for accurate species identification, which in turn could undermine the assessment of impacts from harvesting. The present study employed an integrative approach combining geometric morphometrics and DNA barcoding to address potential taxonomic ambiguities in abalone populations from Sabah, Malaysia. Especially in this megadiverse region, it could be expected that multiple species may co-occur. Morphometric analysis of 135 specimens, using 14 shell landmarks, confirmed that all individuals clustered within the Haliotis asinina group when compared with data from Haliotis glabra. This was supported by genetic analyses, which demonstrated 99% sequence similarity among novel CO1 sequences and previously published DNA barcodes from H. asinina. Despite overlapping morphological traits between H. asinina and similar congeners, the integrative approach conclusively identified all specimens as H. asinina. Although there are some limits to shell-based taxonomy, quantitative approaches to both morphological and genetic data can resolve species boundaries. These results underscore the importance of employing integrative methods in biodiversity assessments and conservation strategies for tropical abalone species.
Keywords: abalone 1, marine gastropods 2, Mollusca 3, integrative taxonomy 4, morphometrics 5, genetic analysis 6
Received: 15 Feb 2025; Accepted: 22 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mamat, Esa, Sigwart, Nor, W.S. Wong, Abdul Kadar, Marcondes Machado, Abdul-Halim and Aminarrashid. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yuzine Esa, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Seri Kembangan, Malaysia
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