Abstract
Since the pre-historic era, humans have been using forests as a food, drugs and handcraft reservoir. Today, the use of botanical raw material to produce pharmaceuticals, herbal remedies, teas, spirits, cosmetics, sweets, dietary supplements, special industrial compounds and crude materials constitute an important global resource in terms of healthcare and economy. In recent years, DNA barcoding has been suggested as a useful molecular technique to complement traditional taxonomic expertise for fast species identification and biodiversity inventories. In this study, in situ application of DNA barcodes was tested on a selected group of forest tree species with the aim of contributing to the identification, conservation and trade control of these valuable plant resources.The “core barcode” for land plants (rbcL, matK, and trnH-psbA) was tested on 68 tree specimens (24 taxa). Universality of the method, ease of data retrieval and correct species assignment using sequence character states, presence of DNA barcoding gaps and GenBank discrimination assessment were evaluated. The markers showed different prospects of reliable applicability. RbcL and trnH-psbA displayed 100% amplification and sequencing success, while matK did not amplify in some plant groups. The majority of species had a single haplotype. The trnH-psbA region showed the highest genetic variability, but in most cases the high intraspecific sequence divergence revealed the absence of a clear DNA barcoding gap. We also faced an important limitation because the taxonomic coverage of the public reference database is incomplete. Overall, species identification success was 66.7%.This work illustrates current limitations in the applicability of DNA barcoding to taxonomic forest surveys. These difficulties urge for an improvement of technical protocols and an increase of the number of sequences and taxa in public databases.
Highlights
Forests figure prominently among the world’s most important ecosystems
Optimal amplification rates were obtained with rbcL and trnH-psbA which produced clear, single-banded PCR products from all 68 investigated samples (136 sequences; 100% efficiency)
MatK was not consistently amplified in the Pinaceae and Rosaceae (44.1% of the investigated dataset) and it was not included in further analyses
Summary
Forests figure prominently among the world’s most important ecosystems. The importance of trees in sustaining biodiversity and habitat stability, as well as to provide a large variety of environmental services is well acknowledged. The increasing human impact, the recent environmental decay, and the on-going climate change are among the main factors affecting forest communities, especially at local and regional scales within the Mediterranean basin (FOREST EUROPE, UNECE and FAO 2011). One way to convince decision-makers of the importance of conserving wild plants and habitats is to demonstrate their economic potential (Kathe 2006). The socio-economic contribution of forests to livelihood and the impact of their use on the environment are essential components of modern concepts for sustainable forest management (Arnold and Perez 2001)
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