Species inventories and conservation status of groupers (family Serranidae) from Madura Island, East Java, Indonesia

The objective of this research is to inventory groupers species from several Fish Landing Bases of Madura Island, East Java, Indonesia. The method of this research was a field survey that was conducted between May and October 2019. Groupers that have been found were identified based on FAO Species Catalogue (Heemstra & Randall, 1993). This research showed that there were 15 species of groupers from three genera of the family Serranidae was found, that was: (1) Plectropomus (Plectropomus maculatus), (2) Cephalopholis (Cephalopholis cyanostigma, C. boenak), and (3) Epinephelus (Epinephelus fasciatus, E. ongus, E. merra, E. coioides, E. bleekeri, E. heniochus, E. sexfasciatus, E. quoyanus, E. Erythrurus, E. analogus, E. areolatus and E. timorensis). Based on IUCN red list status, most of groupers species conservation status are categorized in least concern (LC), except E. bleekeri and E. quoyanus. E. bleekeri which was categorized into least concern in near threaten (NT), while E. quoyanus was categorized in threatened species (TS). In addition, this research also found a rare case of E. tumorensis presence that originally exists around Eastern Indian Ocean and Eastern Central Pacific. Because of their similar morphology and variable pattern, morphological identification of grouper usually leads to taxonomic confusion, hence for further research, confirmation of molecular identification is needed, especially to provide information to determine the conservation status of groupers.