Genetic diversity of the dung beetle, Copris tripartitus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), that is endangered in Korea

Abstract

The dung beetle, Copris tripartitus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), is an endangered insect in Korea. In order to establish a conservation strategy, a preliminary investigation on the genetic diversity of Korean populations was performed using mitochondrial COI (658 bp), CytB (433 bp), and nuclear ITS2 (411 nucleotide positions). Sequencing of 69 individuals collected from five localities showed substantially higher variability (5.02% for COI, 4.62% for CytB, and 8.03% for ITS2). The resulting networks for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotypes exhibited two star‐like phylogenies, which might indicate that Korean populations have recently expended from two small populations. The ITS2 network, which was presented in the form of a star‐like phylogeny, confirmed that a recent population expansion occurred. Considering the high genetic diversity and gene flow in C. tripartitus populations, one issue regarding conservation seems to be the recovery of previous habitats.

Population genetic characterization of the Japanese oak silkmoth, Antheraea yamamai (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae), using novel microsatellite markers and mitochondrial DNA gene sequences

“…It was difficult to find comparable data obtained under similar experimental conditions. Several previous studies have reported the magnitude of genetic diversity of several insect species found in South Korea using partial COI gene sequences (e.g., Kang et al, 2012). When these results were considered, the maximum sequence divergence of the COI gene in An.…”

“…yamamai (0.46%, 3 bp) was one of the lower ones. The others ranged from 0.15 (pear psylla in Hemiptera; Kang et al, 2012) to 11.0% (oriental mole cricket in Orthoptera; Kim et al, 2007). Similarly, the h of An.…”

“…Up to now, several insect resources distributed in South Korea have been subjected to genetic surveys for diverse purposes using different molecular markers. The geographic variation and genetic diversity of the endangered tiny dragonfly (Nannophya pygmaea in Odonata) and dung beetle (Copris tripartitus in Coleoptera) were studied using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences (Kim et al, 2007;Kang et al, 2012). The geographic variation of a pollinating bumblebee (Bombus ignitus in Hymenoptera) was studied using DNA barcode sequences and nuclear internal transcribed spacer 2 (Kim et al, 2009b;Oh et al, 2009;Oh et al, 2013), and its genetic structure was analyzed using microsatellite markers (Han et al, 2014).…”

Genetic divergence between the South Korean and Mongolian populations of the dung beetle, Gymnopleurus mopsus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) based on mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene sequences

“…Endangered insect species in South Korea, tiny dragonfly ( Nonnophya pygmaea ) and dung beetle ( Copris tripartitus ), exhibited different genetic diversity aspects. Copris tripartitus showed relatively high haplotype diversity (0.962–1.000) and nucleotide diversity (0.011–0.022) (Kim et al ), whereas N. pygmaea showed relatively low haplotype diversity (0.0–0.8444) and nucleotide diversity (0.0–0.0026) (Kang et al ).…”

Natural products from microbes associated with insects

“…In another study, Oh and co-workers chemically investigated a diverse population of Actinobacteria from the indigenous soil-dwelling Korean dung beetle ( Copris tripartitus ), its larvae and dung balls [ 102 – 103 ]. Dung beetles are prime contributors to the cyclic breakdown of organic waste material, and their life cycle is tightly dependent on herbivore faeces [ 104 – 105 ]. Based on unique metabolomic profiles (UV chromatogram) and HRMS data, several of the isolated Streptomyces strains were selected for large scale fermentation.…”