Abstract
Identifying organisms has grown in importance as we monitor the biological effects of global climate change and attempt to preserve species diversity in the face of accelerating habitat destruction. Classical taxonomy falls short in this race to catalogue biological diversity before it disappears. Differentiating subtle anatomical differences between closely related species requires the subjective judgment of highly trained specialists – and few are being trained in institutes today. DNA barcodes allow non-experts to objectively identify species – from small, damaged, or even industrially processed material. The aim of DNA barcoding is to establish a shared community resource of DNA sequences commonly used for identification, discrimination or taxonomic classification of organisms. It is a method that uses a short genetic marker in an organism's DNA to identify and distinguish its belonging from particular species, varieties or inter varieties. This simple technique has attracted attention from taxonomists, ecologists, conservation biologists, agriculturists, plant-quarantine officers and studies using the DNA barcode has rapidly increased. The extreme diversity of insects and their economical, epidemiological and agricultural importance have made them a major target of DNA barcoding. In this review, we present an overview of DNA barcoding of insects with emphasis on Chalcid wasps of India.
Highlights
Chalcid wasps are one of the most diverse groups of insects numerically, structurally, and biologically belonging to the superfamily Chalcidoidea and order Hymenoptera
Identification has been based on morphological diagnoses provided by taxonomic studies
Characteristics intrinsic to insects, such as their diversity, biological control and the economic and epidemiological relevance of some groups, have made them the main target of DNA barcoding studies. This standard database can be used in studies on the taxonomy, phylogeny, ecology, agriculture and conservation of various groups of organisms (Jinbo et al, 2011).Several contributions focusing on identification using the mitochondrial c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) have proved useful in the detection of cryptic insect species
Summary
Chalcid wasps are one of the most diverse groups of insects numerically, structurally, and biologically belonging to the superfamily Chalcidoidea and order Hymenoptera. The characterization based on morphometric characters is not well suited for phylogeographical studies because both phenotypic plasticity and genetic variability in the characters employed for species recognition can lead to incorrect identifications (Pires & Marinoni, 2010) It overlooks morphologically cryptic taxa, which are common in many groups (Jarman & Elliott, 2000) and the use of keys often demands such a high level of expertise that misdiagnoses are common. One of the most promising approaches to revitalize traditional taxonomy and help it rise above the taxonomic crisis is the use of molecular data for identifying taxa, which has long been a fundamental idea of many biologists (Busse et al, 1996; Blaxter, 2004) This method has received increased acceptance because it is simple and affordable (Padial & De La Riva, 2007). This approach relies on the use of algorithms enabling DNA-sequence comparison, such as Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) (Altschul et al, 1990), in conjunction with DNA databases such as GenBank
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