DNA barcodes identify Central-Asian Colias butterflies (Lepidoptera, Pieridae)

Gunilla Stahls,Juha Laiho

doi:10.3897/zookeys.365.5879

Abstract

A majority of the known Colias species (Lepidoptera: Pieridae, Coliadinae) occur in the mountainous regions of Central-Asia, vast areas that are hard to access, rendering the knowledge of many species limited due to the lack of extensive sampling. Two gene regions, the mitochondrial COI ‘barcode’ region and the nuclear ribosomal protein RpS2 gene region were used for exploring the utility of these DNA markers for species identification. A comprehensive sampling of COI barcodes for Central Asian Colias butterflies showed that the barcodes facilitated identification of most of the included species. Phylogenetic reconstruction based on parsimony and Neighbour-Joining recovered most species as monophyletic entities. For the RpS2 gene region species-specific sequences were registered for some of the included Colias spp. Nevertheless, this gene region was not deemed useful as additional molecular ‘barcode’. A parsimony analysis of the combined COI and RpS2 data did not support the current subgeneric classification based on morphological characteristics.

Highlights

The use of a standardized gene region, i.e. a 650 bp fragment of the 5’-region of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, as a DNA barcode (Hebert et al 2003), to facilitate identification of biological specimens, as well as for calling attention to possible new species has generated a steadily increasing number of DNA barcoding studies of invertebrates (Taylor and Harris 2012), and of Lepidoptera
The present study shows that most Colias taxa form monophyletic entities that can be identified with COI data alone
The fact that the three C. nebulosa samples were scattered over different parts of the COI tree might be the result of a laboratory contamination due to carry over between samples

Summary

Introduction

The use of a standardized gene region, i.e. a 650 bp fragment of the 5’-region of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (hereafter COI), as a DNA barcode (Hebert et al 2003), to facilitate identification of biological specimens, as well as for calling attention to possible new species has generated a steadily increasing number of DNA barcoding studies of invertebrates (Taylor and Harris 2012), and of Lepidoptera (see www.lepbarcoding.org). Several studies on Lepidoptera have shown that species may be polymorphic and/or share haplotypes (Nice et al 2002, Wahlberg et al 2003, Elias et al 2007, Schmidt and Sperling 2008), so that identifications may become less reliable.

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Conclusion