Abstract
Environmental DNA metabarcoding is becoming a predominant tool in biodiversity assessment, as this time‐ and cost‐efficient tactics have the ability to increase monitoring accuracy. As a worldwide distributed genus, Rheocricotopus Brundin, 1956 still does not possess a complete and comprehensive global DNA barcode reference library for biodiversity monitoring. In the present study, we compiled a cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) DNA barcode library of Rheocricotopus with 434 barcodes around the world, including 121 newly generated DNA barcodes of 32 morphospecies and 313 public barcodes. Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD) was applied on the 434 COI barcodes to provide a comparison between the operational taxonomic units (OTU) number calculated from the Barcode Index Number (BIN) with the “Barcode Gap Analysis” and neighbor‐joining (NJ) tree analysis. Consequently, these 434 COI barcodes were clustered into 78 BINs, including 42 new BINs. ABGD yielded 51 OTUs with a prior intraspecific divergence of Pmax = 7.17%, while NJ tree revealed 52 well‐separated clades. Conservatively, 14 unknown species and one potential synonym were uncovered with reference to COI DNA barcodes. Besides, based on our ecological analysis, we discovered that annual mean temperature and annual precipitation could be considered as key factors associated with distribution of certain members from this genus. Our global DNA barcode reference library of Rheocricotopus provides one fundamental database for accurate species delimitation in Chironomidae taxonomy and facilitates the biodiversity monitoring of aquatic biota.
Highlights
Biodiversity has been declining under the pressure from nonstopping human activities coupled with ongoing climate change events (Newbold et al, 2015) and needs urgent protective actions
Environmental DNA metabarcoding is becoming a predominant tool in biodiversity assessment, as this time-and cost-efficient tactics have the ability to increase monitoring accuracy
Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD) was applied on the 434 c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) barcodes to provide a comparison between the operational taxonomic units (OTU) number calculated from the Barcode Index Number (BIN) with the “Barcode Gap Analysis” and neighbor-joining (NJ) tree analysis
Summary
Biodiversity has been declining under the pressure from nonstopping human activities coupled with ongoing climate change events (Newbold et al, 2015) and needs urgent protective actions. | 12162 freshwater ecosystems is dependent on taxonomic expertise with classical morphological information (Kelly et al, 2014) To overcome this limitation, DNA barcoding (Hebert et al, 2003; Hebert et al, 2003) has gradually and widely been applied on species identification as well as taxonomic assessments with the support of standardized genetic markers (Hebert et al, 2004; Young et al, 2019). Since DNA barcoding is able to provide the chance to perform accurate and comprehensive species identifications, this effective strategy is urgently needed as a steppingstone to facilitate evolutionary studies and biodiversity assessments. DNA barcodes could provide a more precise and effective approach to disentangle biodiversity in genus Rheocricotopus. A thorough understanding concerning ecological characteristics of this globally distributed genus is the final goal for providing clues to exploring the potential relationship between distribution and environmental factors
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