DNA Barcodes Can Distinguish Species of Indian Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae)

Abstract

Species identification of mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) based on morphological characteristics remains often difficult in field-collected mosquito specimens in vector-borne disease surveillance programs. The use of DNA barcodes has been proposed recently as a tool for identification of the species in many diverse groups of animals. However, the efficacy of this tool for mosquitoes remains unexplored. Hence, a study was undertaken to construct DNA barcodes for several species of mosquitoes prevalent in India, which included major vector species. In total, 111 specimens of mosquitoes belonging to 15 genera, morphologically identified to be 63 species, were used. This number also included multiple specimens for 22 species. DNA barcode approach based on DNA sequences of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase gene sequences could identify 62 species among these, in confirmation with the conventional taxonomy. However, two closely related species, Ochlerotatus portonovoensis (Tiwari & Hiriyan) and Ochlerotatus wardi (Reinert) could not be identified as separate species based on DNA barcode approach, their lineages indicating negligible genetic divergence (Kimura two-parameter genetic distance = 0.0043).

DNA barcoding for identification of mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) from the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan

“…e results were in accordance with studies on mosquitoes in Canada (Cywinska et al, 2006) and India (Kumar et al, 2007). e averages of mean nucleotide divergence for intra-and interspeci c mosquitoes among the genera Anopheles, Aedes and Culex were similar to the results for Canadian mosquito species reported by Cywinska et al (2006).…”

“…Conventional mosquito classi cation has been carried out in Japan based on morphological characteristics of adults and larvae (Bohart and Ingram, 1946;La Casse and Yamaguti, 1955;Tanaka et al, 1979;Toma and Miyagi, 1986). is conventional method is time-consuming, requires high taxonomic knowledge and is not always su cient for identi cation to the species level, especially in the case of mosquitoes such as sibling species and damaged specimens (Cywinska et al, 2006;Kumar et al, 2007). Recently, a variety of DNA based techniques such as DNA hybridization (Beebe et al, 1996), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) (Goswami et al, 2005;Santolamazza et al, 2004), random ampli ed polymorphic DNA (RAPD) (Sucharit and Komalamisra, 1997), polymerase chain reac- Med.…”

“…Recently, DNA barcoding tools have been examined for identi cation of mosquitoes in Canada and India (Cywinska et al, 2006;Kumar et al, 2007), and the utility is promising. However, to date, no study using DNA barcoding has yet been conducted for the identication of mosquito species in Japan.…”

DNA barcoding mosquitoes: advice for potential prospectors

“…Indeed, morphological and molecular comparisons of the COI sequence do appear congruent in studies across genus levels, as attested by morphological species' studies on mosquito diversity from Argentina (Laurito et al 2013), Australia (Batovska et al 2016), China (Wang et al 2012), India (Kumar et al 2007), Singapore (Chan et al 2014), Italy (Talbalaghi andShaikevich, 2011), Iran (Azari-Hamidian et al 2009) and Pakistan (Ashfaq et al 2014). This latter study from Pakistan reveals intraspecific divergences at a maximum of 2.4% from over 1600 individuals from 24 taxa -a result in line with the original Canadian work.…”

Polymorphism of mitochondrial COI and nuclear ribosomal ITS2 in the Culex pipiens complex and in Culex torrentium (Diptera: Culicidae)

“…Mitochondrial DNA is often used in phylogenetic studies of insects, including mosquitoes (e.g., Morlais, Severson 2002;Rasgon et al, 2006;Cywinska et al, 2006;Kumar et al, 2007;Paudan, Ribolla, 2008). It is believed that nucleotide substitutions in mtDNA occur with about constant rate in the evolutionary time, and this allows one to estimate the time of a divergence (DeSalle et al, 1987).…”