DNA Barcoding of Nigeria’s Forest Species Listed in CITES and Other Endangered Plant Species of National Interest

Abstract

Illegal trade is considered one of the greatest threats to the loss of biodiversity of endangered plants. Some of these plant species are often trafficked in processed forms, making it extremely difficult for taxonomic experts to identify them. In the past, illegal traders of endangered species have been arrested and prosecuted but eventually cleared due to a lack of conclusive evidence. DNA barcoding is a veritable tool to protect these endangered species from illegal trade. It identifies all stages of the species’ life forms including processed products (milled or powdered animal and plant parts). The study utilised the rbcL gene as a single barcode region in the identification/authentication of 19 Nigeria’s endangered forest species legislated under the CITES and other endangered species of national interest. The generated sequence barcodes were used to query NCBI-GenBank and BOLD databases. 57.89% of the samples were identified down to species level and 42.11% to genus level. Amongst the 19 samples, sample (S7) yielded a high-quality sequence for a single sequencing read (forward), sufficient to identify the sample with a 99.81% identity match on NCBI-GenBank and BOLD. The results reveal that the rbcL single barcode efficiently identified most of the sampled plants; this supports the potential utilisation of DNA barcoding in the accurate detection and conservation of CITES-listed plants in Nigeria. The study documented the CITES-listed plants and other essential plants endangered or threatened plants in Nigeria and provided the first chloroplast DNA reference dataset to support the utilisation of DNA barcoding to identify CITES-listed plant species in Nigeria, which is significant for future studies.