Testing the Effectiveness of DNA Barcoding for Biodiversity Assessment of Moths from Nigeria

Lotanna Micah Nneji,Omotoso Olatunde,Yun-Yu Wang,Adeyemi Mufutau Ajao,Caroline Samuel Olory,Yoila Malann,Adeola Oluwakemi Ayoola,Okorie Anyaele,Agboola Okeyoyin,Adeniyi Charles Adeola,Md Mizanur Rahman,Ifeanyi Christopher Nneji,Akinkunle Victor Adeniyi

doi:10.3390/d12020085

Abstract

Comprehensive biodiversity assessment of moths in Nigeria rely greatly on accurate species identification. While most of the Nigerian moths are identified effortlessly using their morphological traits, some taxa are morphologically indistinguishable, which makes it difficult for taxon diagnosis. We investigated the efficiency of the DNA barcode, a fragment of the mitochondrial Cytochrome C oxidase subunit I, as a tool for the identification of Nigerian moths. We barcoded 152 individuals comprising 18 morphospecies collected from one of the remaining and threatened rainforest blocks of Nigeria – the Cross River National Park. Phenetic neighbor-joining tree and phylogenetic Maximum Likelihood approach were employed for the molecular-based species identification. Results showed that DNA barcodes enabled species-level identification of most of the individuals collected from the Park. Additionally, DNA barcoding unraveled the presence of at least six potential new and yet undescribed species—Amnemopsyche sp., Arctia sp., Deinypena sp., Hodebertia sp., Otroeda sp., and Palpita sp. The phylogenetic Maximum Likelihood using the combined dataset of all the newly assembled sequences from Nigeria showed that all species formed unique clades. The phylogenetic analyses provided evidence of population divergence in Euchromia lethe, Nyctemera leuconoe, and Deinypena lacista. This study thus illustrates the efficacy of DNA barcoding for species identification and discovery of potential new species, which demonstrates its relevance in biodiversity documentation of Nigerian moths. Future work should, therefore, extend to the creation of an exhaustive DNA barcode reference library comprising all species of moths from Nigeria to have a comprehensive insight on the diversity of moths in the country. Finally, we propose integrated taxonomic methods that would combine morphological, ecological, and molecular data in the identification and diversity studies of moths in Nigeria.

Highlights

The order Lepidoptera, which includes butterflies and moths, is one of the most diverse and widely recognized insect groups in the world [1]
As our study is a preliminary step towards establishing the effectiveness of DNA barcoding in rapid biodiversity assessments of Nigerian moths, we focused our sampling in pristine humid forests of Erokut Camp and Nsan communities of Cross
To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to examine the effectiveness of DNA barcoding in biodiversity assessment and species-level identification of moths from the Cross River National Park

Summary

Introduction

The order Lepidoptera, which includes butterflies and moths, is one of the most diverse and widely recognized insect groups in the world [1]. Within the order Lepidoptera, moths make up the vast majority with over 160000 species [3]. Moths have great economic significance in our ecosystem. Some moths, e.g., Bombyx mori, Samia cynthia, Antheraea pernyi, Antheraea assamensis etc., are domesticated for their economic value in silk production [4]. In some tropical and temperate regions of the world, the larval stage of some moth species constitutes severe agricultural pests to plants. The African sugarcane borer (Eldana saccharina) is a significant pest of sugarcane, maize, and sorghum in Africa [5]

Methods

Results

Conclusion