Cryptic biodiversity in streams: a comparison of macroinvertebrate communities based on morphological and DNA barcode identifications

DNA barcode assessment of Mediterranean mayflies (Ephemeroptera), benchmark data for a regional reference library for rapid biomonitoring of freshwaters

“…In any case, it is necessary that a general improvement of mayfly taxonomy should be pursued with a multidisciplinary approach. The discovery of new/cryptic species and nomenclatural revisions through highly divergent barcode haplogroups should correlate with additional evidences, including morphological, ecological, biogeographical descriptors and independent molecular markers (Monaghan and Sartori, 2009;Jackson et al, 2014). This is also true for the various instances of family and genera paraphyly or incongruent groupings resulting in the ML dendrogram, in agreement with the continued revision of Ephemeroptera taxonomy on a global scale of the last decades.…”

“…This is a standard threshold for species identification with barcodes in insect groups, and suggests that intra-specific sequence divergences >2% could be indicative of the existence of cryptic species (Hebert et al, 2004;Smith et al, 2013;Jackson et al, 2014). In our dataset, intra-specific divergences exceeding the 2% cut-off were found in 65% of the species, with Procleon bifidum, Baetis cyrneus and Epeorus assimilis showing extremely high values (>10%).…”

The first record of Tinodes antonioi Botosaneanu & Taticchi-Viganò, 1974 (Insecta, Trichoptera) in Croatia with DNA barcoding and ecological data and notice of biodiversity and distribution of the genus Tinodes in Croatia

“…As in many previous studies (e.g. Pauls et al, 2010;Jackson et al, 2014;Zhou et al, 2007;Zhou, 2009) also in this study, DNA barcoding proves as fast and reliable method for resolving morphological doubts.…”

Does DNA barcoding improve performance of traditional stream bioassessment metrics?

“…We assigned molecular operational taxonomic unit (MOTU) identifications to individual specimens based on the genetic distance thresholds identified by Jackson et al (2014) so that all taxonomic groups were delimited manually with a 2% distance threshold applied to branch lengths, except Simulium and Baetis, which were delimited at 3 and 1% distance thresholds, respectively. We added specimens with a sequence length <350 bp to existing MOTUs based on a 2% K2P distance threshold.…”

“…DNA barcoding has the ability to provide taxonomic information beyond that typically derived from traditional morphological identification, particularly for cryptic, small, or rare species (Pauls et al 2010, Sweeney et al 2011, Jackson et al 2014. For example, use of DNA barcoding resulted in a >5× increase in the number of sensitive Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) taxa detected, and improvements were most marked for rare species, which may be diagnostic of specific habitat or water-quality conditions .…”