DNA barcoding for species identification in the Palmae family

Abstract

ABSTRACT. DNA barcoding is a promising tool for species identification at the molecular level. The barcoding system is well established for species differentiation in animals, while it is less common in plants. We evaluated 2 barcoding regions, maturase K (matK) and ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase (rbcL), to compare species of Palmae according to amplification success, discrimination power, and inter-and intra-specific divergence. Both regions appear to have potential to discriminate most species of Palmae, but 2 species, Phoenix dactylifera and Phoenix sylvestris, did not show variation in the nucleotides of the barcode genes. P. sylvestris is said to be the sister species of P. dactilyfera according to its morphological and genetic proximity to the cultivated date palm. Thus, the status of these 2 species needs to be re-evaluated considering more genes as barcodes. Furthermore, rbcL has a higher discrimination power (90%) than matK (66.6%) and can thus be potentially used as a standard barcode to discriminate the species of Palmae.

Discriminatory power of rbcL barcode locus for authentication of some of United Arab Emirates (UAE) native plants

“…Universal bar code should possess three characteristics, short sequence, universality, and unique identifiers (Stoeckle 2003), which was more applicable to algae than to land plants due to the absence of variable identifiers (Presting 2006). So far, single barcode region suitable to all plant taxa is not reported (Ballardini et al 2013); different barcodes are successful to different taxa, for example, rbcL locus for palmae (Naeem et al 2014;Bafeel et al 2012); ITS for Asteraceae (Gong et al 2015); multiple loci, ITS ? rpoB and rpoC1 for Resedaceae ; rbcL ?…”

Phylogenetic Taxonomy of Artemisia L. Species from Kazakhstan Based on Matk Analyses

“…Individual DNA samples were analysed separately. PCR fragments were amplified for the maturase K gene of the chloroplast genome (matK) (Naeem et al, 2014).…”

The utility of DNA barcodes to confirm the identification of palm collections in botanical gardens

“…DNA barcoding may be a particularly valuable tool for confirming the identification of palm species, especially for specimens at immature stages of development, where diagnostic floral characteristics are rarely present in many botanical garden collections. Despite the species richness and economic or cultural importance of the palm family, there have only been a handful of studies that have utilized DNA barcoding to resolve species relationships in the group [ 5 – 7 ], although rates of species discrimination based on DNA barcoding varies among studies and genera. For example, among 40 out of the 48 species of the southeast Asian tribe Caryoteae, two DNA barcodes ( rbcL and matK ) revealed relatively low species discrimination rates, and ITS2 was chosen over trnH-psbA as a supplemental region to these two ‘core’ markers [ 5 ].…”