Gobiids constitute a major proportion of fish population in both tropical and temperate freshwater as well as marine ecosystem. Due to their small size, cryptic ecology and ambiguous morphological characters, gobiids diversity was not documented completely. In this study, DNA barcodes were generated for 11 species of gobiids, collected from the Ashtamudi Lake, India. The mitochondrial COI gene was amplified using universal primers and the resulted 650 bp amplicon was sequenced. The COI barcodes clearly distinguished all the species with high interspecific genetic distance values than intra-specific values based on K2P (Kimura 2 Parameter) model. The average genetic distance (K2P model) within species, genus and family was 1.2%, 22.2% and 25.3%, respectively. In addition to barcode-based species identification system, Nucleotide Diagnostic (ND) characters specific for species were identified. The Neighbor-Joining tree revealed distinct clusters shared by the species of same genera.

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Hook and line fishing has been used for the last two decades along the Vizhinjam Coast targeting mainly tunas especially bullet tuna. The fishing methodology is in use for more than several decades, but systematic study in relation to the modifications in fishing practice and its impact on the improvement in catch and income generation of fishermen has not yet been done. This paper aims to bring out the modifications in the gear/ craft and area of operation of line fishery and its impact on the income generation of fishers in the Vizhinjam Coast.

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