Diversity investigation by application of DNA barcoding: A case study of lepidopteran insects in Xinjiang wild fruit forests, China

Abstract

To investigate the species diversity of lepidopteran insects in Xinjiang wild fruit forests, establish insect community monitoring systems, and determine the local species pool, we test the applicability of DNA barcoding based on cytochrome c oxidase subunit I ( COI ) gene for accurate and rapid identification of insect species. From 2017 to 2019, a total of 212 samples with ambiguous morphological identification were selected for DNA barcoding analysis. Five sequence‐based methods for species delimitation (ABGD, BINs, GMYC, jMOTU, and bPTP) were conducted for comparison to traditional morphology‐based identification. In total, 2,422 samples were recorded, representing 143 species of 110 genera in 17 families in Lepidoptera. The diversity analysis showed that the richness indices for Noctuidae was the highest (54 species), and for Pterophoridae, Cossidae, Limacodidae, Lasiocampidae, Pieridae, and Lycaenidae were the lowest (all with 1 species). The Shannon–Wiener species diversity index (H′) and Pielou's evenness (J′) of lepidopteran insects first increased and then decreased across these 3 years, while the Simpson diversity index showed a trend of subtracted then added. For molecular‐based identification, 67 lepidopteran species within 61 genera in 14 families were identified through DNA barcoding. Neighbor‐joining (NJ) analysis showed that conspecific individuals were clustered together and formed monophyletic groups with a high support value, except for Lacanobia contigua (Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775) (Noctuidae: Hadeninae). Sixty‐seven morphospecies were classified into various numbers of MOTUs based on ABGD, BINs, GMYC, jMOTU, and bPTP (70, 96, 2, 71, and 71, respectively). In Xinjiang wild fruit forests, the family with the largest number of species is Noctuidae, followed by Geometridae, Crambidae, and the remaining families. The highest Shannon diversity index is observed for the family Noctuidae. Our results indicate that the distance‐based methods (ABGD and jMOTU) and character‐based method (bPTP) outperform GMYC. BINs is inclined to overestimate species diversity compared to other methods.

Temporal Dynamics and DNA Barcoding of Hymenoptera from Juniper Forest Ecosystem

“…Traditional morphological classification methods of insects remain relevant in taxonomy for describing the diversity of insects [23]. However, identifying species through this morphological method using a microscope proves challenging because it requires indepth knowledge [24,25] to differentiate closely related species [26]. The use of DNA-based methods in the identification of species has several advantages, such as the reproducibility of results [27,28].…”

Evaluation of DSSAT CROPGRO model on growth and yield of pigeonpea cultivars under different fertigation levels

“…Many reports have indicated that as most species move to new habitats, their population genetic structure and molecular diversity shift, as noticed in a few exotic species (Rubinoff et al, 2011;Xia et al,2020;Buj et al, 2022). In this connection, due to its variability, tight maternal genetic inheritance, lack of genetic recombination and suitability for analyzing population genetic makeup and seeking the origin of organism differences, mitochondrial DNA is well suited for these purposes (Shashank et al, 2014;Sarma et al, 2016;Zhan et al,2022). Furthermore, mtDNA is a reliable indicator of differences between and within populations (Margam et al, 2011;Xu et al, 2022).…”