Identifying the Main Mosquito Species in China Based on DNA Barcoding

Abstract

Mosquitoes are insects of the Diptera, Nematocera, and Culicidae families, some species of which are important disease vectors. Identifying mosquito species based on morphological characteristics is difficult, particularly the identification of specimens collected in the field as part of disease surveillance programs. Because of this difficulty, we constructed DNA barcodes of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1, the COI gene, for the more common mosquito species in China, including the major disease vectors. A total of 404 mosquito specimens were collected and assigned to 15 genera and 122 species and subspecies on the basis of morphological characteristics. Individuals of the same species grouped closely together in a Neighborhood-Joining tree based on COI sequence similarity, regardless of collection site. COI gene sequence divergence was approximately 30 times higher for species in the same genus than for members of the same species. Divergence in over 98% of congeneric species ranged from 2.3% to 21.8%, whereas divergence in conspecific individuals ranged from 0% to 1.67%. Cryptic species may be common and a few pseudogenes were detected.

DNA barcoding: complementing morphological identification of mosquito species in Singapore

“…Previous studies have proven that COI gene is an efficient and useful barcode for the identification of metazoans, including mosquitoes [21][22][23][24][25][26]. However, COI barcode may not be universally applicable to identify all animal species.…”

“…For example, COI-based barcoding has not been promising in identifying fungi and plant species [27][28][29]. Likewise, COI barcoding has failed to distinguish certain mosquito species of Anopheles and Culex [21][22][23][24][25]. Kumar et al, [23] reported that two closely related mosquito species of the genus Ochlerotatus could not be differentiated using their COI barcode.…”

Mosquitoes of Anopheles hyrcanus (Diptera, Culicidae) Group: Species Diagnostic and Phylogenetic Relationships

“…[18][19][20] The sequence divergences between species averaged 3.71% (range 2.34-4.50%), which is higher than the threshold of the intra-and interspecific differences (2%). 21 Individuals of a single species always occurred on a common clade, regardless of where they were collected (Figure 1).…”

Identification of Three Distinct Groups of <i>Anopheles lindesayi</i> in Japan by Morphological and Genetic Analyses

“…Notably, the largest K2P distance (9.13%) observed between specimens from Hokkaido (E-Japan) and Nagasaki (W-Japan) is much greater than the intra-specific K2P divergence (<2%) based on COI barcoding region of mosquitoes (35,36). Maekawa et al (34) also reported a high K2P distance (8.5%) between specimens from Hokkaido (E-Japan) and Wakayama (W-Japan).…”