Mapping global biodiversity connections with DNA barcodes: Lepidoptera of Pakistan

Muhammad Ashfaq; Saleem Akhtar; Muhammad Athar Rafi; Shahid Mansoor; Paul D N Hebert

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0174749

Mapping global biodiversity connections with DNA barcodes: Lepidoptera of Pakistan

PLoS One. 2017 Mar 24;12(3):e0174749. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0174749. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Muhammad Ashfaq¹, Saleem Akhtar², Muhammad Athar Rafi³, Shahid Mansoor², Paul D N Hebert¹

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
² National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
³ Insect Museum, National Agriculture Research Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan.

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.

MeSH terms

Animal Distribution
Animals
Biodiversity*
DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic*
Lepidoptera / genetics*
Pakistan

Grants and funding

This research was enabled by grant HEC No. 20-1403/R& D/09 “Sequencing DNA Barcodes of Economically Important Insect Species from Pakistan” from the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and by grant 106106-001 “Engaging Developing Nations in iBOL” from the International Development Research Centre in Canada. Sequence analysis was made possible by a grant from the Government of Canada through Genome 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.