Applications and challenges of DNA barcoding and metabarcoding in African fisheries

Abstract

Africa is a continent that incubates huge inland freshwater reservoirs, representing 27% of total world liquid freshwater, and bounded by marine blue belt. This topography makes Africa harboring diverse freshwater and marine fishery resources. However, fisheries in Africa are still facing big challenges that can be resolved by molecular genetic tools. The present review demonstrated how DNA barcoding approaches expand in African fisheries to solve the problems of fish species identifications, evolutions, population differentiations and biogeographic distributions. Additionally, the limited DNA metabarcoding applications in screening African fish gut microbiome and fish diseases were discussed. Also, we highlighted future perspectives in molecular barcoding applications in African fisheries and a concept for establishing of Africa fish gene bank.

Keywords

• DNA barcoding
• Metabarcoding
• African fisheries
• Applications
• Challenges