Mapping global biodiversity connections with DNA barcodes: Lepidoptera of Pakistan.

Muhammad Ashfaq,Sebastian D Fugmann,Paul D N Hebert,Muhammad Athar Rafi,Shahid Mansoor,Saleem Akhtar

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0174749

Muhammad Ashfaq, Sebastian D Fugmann + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174749

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Abstract

Sequences from the DNA barcode region of the mitochondrial COI gene are an effective tool for specimen identification and for the discovery of new species. The Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) (www.boldsystems.org) currently hosts 4.5 million records from animals which have been assigned to more than 490,000 different Barcode Index Numbers (BINs), which serve as a proxy for species. Because a fourth of these BINs derive from Lepidoptera, BOLD has a strong capability to both identify specimens in this order and to support studies of faunal overlap. DNA barcode sequences were obtained from 4503 moths from 329 sites across Pakistan, specimens that represented 981 BINs from 52 families. Among 379 species with a Linnaean name assignment, all were represented by a single BIN excepting five species that showed a BIN split. Less than half (44%) of the 981 BINs had counterparts in other countries; the remaining BINs were unique to Pakistan. Another 218 BINs of Lepidoptera from Pakistan were coupled with the 981 from this study before being compared with all 116,768 BINs for this order. As expected, faunal overlap was highest with India (21%), Sri Lanka (21%), United Arab Emirates (20%) and with other Asian nations (2.1%), but it was very low with other continents including Africa (0.6%), Europe (1.3%), Australia (0.6%), Oceania (1.0%), North America (0.1%), and South America (0.1%). This study indicates the way in which DNA barcoding facilitates measures of faunal overlap even when taxa have not been assigned to a Linnean species.

Highlights

Biodiversity inventories are a critical element of biogeographic analysis and have traditionally been based on morphological approaches [1,2,3]
The specimens belong to 52 families, 108 subfamilies, 412 genera, 379 species and a total of 981 Barcode Index Numbers (BINs) (S1 Table)
The Erebidae and Noctuidae possessed the largest number of specimens (1065, 830 respectively) and the most BINs (198, 168)

Summary

Introduction

Biodiversity inventories are a critical element of biogeographic analysis and have traditionally been based on morphological approaches [1,2,3]. Molecular analysis [4] has the advantage of both revealing patterns of regional genetic divergence and allowing biodiversity comparisons at larger geographic and taxonomic scales [5,6]. Canada and the Ontario Genomics Institute in support of the International Barcode of Life (iBOL) project. This is a contribution to the Food From Thought project supported by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

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