Tomistoma schlegelii, also referred to as the “false gharial”, is one of the most exclusive and least known of the world’s fresh water crocodilians, limited to Indonesia and Malaysia. The species has been recognized for over a century... more
Tomistoma schlegelii, also referred to as the “false gharial”, is one of the most exclusive and least known of the world’s fresh water crocodilians, limited to Indonesia and Malaysia. The species has been recognized for over a century from a museum specimen, and its distribution has been a mystery for a long time. Its lack of economic value and local cultural significance (the skin is not traded locally) has also contributed to the lack of studies on the false gharial. Tomistoma schlegelii within the Southeast Asia region has been found to suffer from population reduction. This species has to live in small environments, because of the current habitat destruction, hence leading to a steady reduction of species number and, this can be as a reason for an increase in the rate of inbreeding. Nevertheless, lack of information on the genetic variability and structure of the species in Malaysia remains a matter of concern. Hence, the objectives of this study were to determine the current ge...
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Tomistoma schlegelii, also referred to as the “false gharial”, is one of the most exclusive and least known of the world’s fresh water crocodilians, limited to Southeast Asia. Indeed, lack of economic value for its skin has led to neglect... more
Tomistoma schlegelii, also referred to as the “false gharial”, is one of the most exclusive and least known of the world’s fresh water crocodilians, limited to Southeast Asia. Indeed, lack of economic value for its skin has led to neglect the biodiversity of the species. The current study aimed to investigate the mentioned case using 40 Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) primer pairs and 45 Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) primers. DNA analysis of 17 T. schlegelii samples using the SSR and ISSR markers resulted in producing a total of 49 and 108 polymorphic bands, respectively. Furthermore, the SSR- and ISSR-based cluster analyses both generated two main clusters. However, the SSR based results were found more in line with the geographical distributions of the crocodile samples collected across the country as compared with the ISSR-based results. The observed heterozygosity (HO) and expected heterozygosity (HE) of the polymorphic SSRs ranged between 0.588-1 and 0.470-0.891, respectivel...