The groupers are commercially important marine species over the world

and they are also the important mariculture species of the coastal provinces in south China. The great variety of the species and the lack of morphological characteristics led to much confusion and dispution in their phylogenetic relationships and species identification. In the present study

we try to reveal the phylogenetic relationships of groupers on molecular level. The partial mitochondrial cytochrome b (Cyt b) gene and two ribosomal genes (16S and 12S) were combined and applied to species identification and relationship analysis of 13 Epinepheline species from 3 genera distributed in coastal waters of south China. The results showed that: ①The mitochondrial genes are appropriate as molecular markers for Epinepheline species identification because considerably high sequence difference among species and very low within species were found in these 3 genera; ② Epinephelus was more closely related to Cephalopholis than to Plectropomus; ③ The genetic relationship was very close between E.akaara and E.awoara

E.merra and E.longispinis

E.coioides and E.corallicola.