DNA bar coding of Aplousobranchiata and Phlebobranchiata Ascidians (Phylum:Chordata) inferred from mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene sequence approach in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India: a first report.

Ascidians (Phylum: Chordata) are sessile and filter-feeding marine animal, species identification of ascidians is possible by observing various morphological and anatomical features in various stages of life span. However, this method is labor intensive, time-consuming and very difficult for non-specialists particularly when dealing with field collections. Suborder Aplousobranchiata and Phlebobranchiata is the largest group of tunicates within, morphological and molecular data suggest that Didemnidae and Ascidiidae are monophyletic, but the monophyly of each genus and their phylogenetic relationships are still poorly understood. Therefore, this study was aimed to develop DNA barcodes of ascidians belonging to the orders of Aplousobranchiata and Phlebobranchiata species namely , , , and collected from Andaman and Nicobar Islands were sequenced and submitted in Gen Bank. Colony structure, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) for spicules of colonial ascidians, larval type and zooids formation were found to be the most useful morphological characters for discriminating the species. Our BLAST results proved KP842724 (98%) KP842726 (100%) KP779902 (99%), KP779904 (99%) and KP842727 (100%) similarity and this is the first report of mitochondrial COI gene of these ascidians from Andaman and Nicobar Islands. We explored the usefulness of CO1 gene sequences for molecular level identification and mtDNA data in assessing a phylogenetic relationship of ascidian species.