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DNA barcoding of Gaultheria L. in China (Ericaceae: Vaccinioideae)
Author(s) -
REN He,
LU Lu,
WANG Hong,
LI DeZhu
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of systematics and evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.249
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1759-6831
pISSN - 1674-4918
DOI - 10.1111/j.1759-6831.2011.00152.x
Subject(s) - biology , dna barcoding , internal transcribed spacer , locus (genetics) , interspecific competition , intraspecific competition , evolutionary biology , dna sequencing , botany , genetics , gene , ribosomal rna , zoology
Four DNA barcoding loci, chloroplast loci rbcL , matK , trnH‐psbA , and nuclear locus internal transcribed spacer (ITS), were tested for the accurate discrimination of the Chinese species of Gaultheria by using intraspecific and interspecific pairwise P ‐distance, Wilcoxon signed rank test, and tree‐based analyses. This study included 186 individuals from 89 populations representing 30 species. For all individuals, single locus markers showed high levels of sequencing universality but were ineffective for species resolvability. Polymerase chain reaction amplification and sequencing were successful for all four loci. Both ITS and matK showed significantly higher levels of interspecific species delimitation than rbcL and trnH‐psbA . A combination of matK and ITS was the most efficient DNA barcode among all studied regions, however, they do not represent an appropriate candidate barcode for Chinese Gaultheria , by which only 11 out of 30 species can be separated. Loci rbcL , matK , and trnH‐psbA , which were recently proposed as universal plant barcodes, have a very poor capacity for species separation for Chinese Gaultheria . DNA barcodes may be reliable tools to identify the evolutionary units of this group, so further studies are needed to develop more efficient DNA barcodes for Gaultheria and other genera with complicated evolutionary histories.