Characterization of Five New Earthworm Mitogenomes (Oligochaeta: Lumbricidae): Mitochondrial Phylogeny of Lumbricidae

Hongyi Liu,Honghua Ruan,Wei Xu,Yufeng Zhang,Yu Fang

doi:10.3390/d13110580

Hongyi Liu, Honghua Ruan + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/d13110580

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Abstract

Identification based on conventional morphological characteristics is typically difficult and time-consuming. The development of molecular techniques provides a novel strategy that relies on specific mitochondrial gene fragments to conduct authentication. For this study, five newly sequenced partial mitogenomes of earthworms (Bimastos parvus, Dendrobaena octaedra, Eisenia andrei, Eisenia nordenskioldi, and Octolasion tyrtaeum) with lengths ranging from 14,977 to 15,715 were presented. Each mitogenome possessed a putative control region that resided between tRNA-Arg and tRNA-His. All of the PCGs were under negative selection according to the value of Ka/Ks. The phylogenetic trees supported the classification of Eisenia and Lumbricus; however, the trees based on cox1 did not. Through various comparisons, it was determined that cox1 fragments might be more suitable for molecular identification. These results lay the foundation for further phylogenetic studies on Lumbricidae.

Highlights

Earthworms are one of the most dominant and widely distributed invertebrates in soils
The five mitogenomes were submitted to GenBank (Table 2). The mitogenomes of these five species possessed the typical gene composition that has been hypothesized for most earthworms, including 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNAs (tRNAs) genes, and two ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs) genes (12S and 16S) [25,27]
There was a 417 to 1093 bp repetitive sequence between tRNA-Arg and tRNA-His, which was suspected to be a putative control region (CR) that appeared in the mitogenomes of other Lumbricidae species [22,23,24]

Summary

Introduction

Earthworms are one of the most dominant and widely distributed invertebrates in soils They can significantly alter their habitats through the formation of soil aggregates by drilling soil and accelerating microbial activities, with profound effects on both belowground and aboveground biota [1,2]. Despite their importance for ecosystems, significant difficulties remain in the identification of earthworms [3]. This is due to the limited number of external features available for identification, as well as the considerable plasticity of these features; species identification often relies on internal structures [1,3,4]. As classification and species identification are the basis of most ecological studies, identification limitations have greatly hindered progress in the ecological and community research on earthworms

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