DNA profiling of host–herbivore interactions in tropical forests

Abstract

Abstract. 1. The diversity of insects in tropical forests remains poorly known, in particular regarding the critical feeding associations of herbivores, which are thought to drive species richness in these ecosystems.2. Host records remain elusive and traditionally require labour-intensive feeding trials. A recent approach analyses plant DNA ingested by herbivorous insects; direct PCR amplification from DNA extracts from weevils (Curculionoidea) using chloroplast (trnL intron) primers was successful in 41 of 115 cases, resulting in 40 different sequences.3. The resulting trnL intron sequences were identified against public databases to various hierarchical levels based on their position in phylogenetic trees and shown to be members of 26 plant families from different major groups of angiosperms.4. Among the trnL intron sequences, seven pairs or triplets of close relatives (0-2 bp difference) were found which may represent intraspecific variation in the respective host plants.5. Molecular clock calibrations of mitochondrial cox1 sequences of weevils established great distances of lineages obtained (all splits estimated >20 Mya). Distant taxa were found to feed on the same or similar hosts in some cases, showing low evolutionary conservation of host associations among deeper levels.6. The technique provides a new means of studying species diversity and plant-herbivore interactions in tropical forests, and removes the constraints of the need for actual observations of feeding in ecological and evolutionary studies.

Molecular barcoding for central-eastern European Crioceris leaf-beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

“…The utility of the COI mitochondrial gene as a DNA barcoding system for the identification or verification of the taxonomic status of species has been tested in many animal groups and has shown promising results in some cases (e.g., for leaf-beetles and weevils: [49][50][51][52]) and bugs [53,54]), but also some constraints in others (e.g., [25,55,56]). Similar research on the application of DNA barcoding for testing taxonomic and phylogenetic species concepts of closely related species of leafbeetles were performed e.g.…”

Rapid Plant Identification Using Species- and Group-Specific Primers Targeting Chloroplast DNA

“…Contrary, we could identify plants to species level within a single PCR. The trn T-F cpDNA used in this study already proved as an appropriate barcode for identifying digested plant DNA [39], [40], [41]. But, the approach presented here is also applicable for other loci than the trn T-F region.…”

Conservation genetics of endangered leaf-beetle Cheilotoma musciformis populations in Poland

“…This large accessibility of trnL sequences in GenBank make this gene more useful for ecological studies than other standard plant barcodes (like rbcL and matK genes; CBOL Plant Working Group 2009). And indeed, trnL barcode has been successfully used in studies on host plant-beetles interactions (Jurado-Rivera et al 2009;Navarro et al 2010).…”

“…Amplification of plant barcodes was done using primers for intron of the tRNA-Leu intron (trnL) (A49325 and B49863; Taberlet et al 1991) and the chloroplast maturase K gene (matK) (matK472F and matK1248R; Yu et al (2011), with internal primers designated for museum sample; see Table 2). The TrnL intron has been used for host plant identification of many beetle species (Jurado-Rivera et al 2009;Navarro et al 2010). MatK is one of the markers which have been recently chosen as the most suitable for plant barcoding (CBOL Plant Working Group 2009).…”

“…Moreover, for effective conservation it is also necessary to have in-depth knowledge of the ecology of the protected species, e.g. its host plants, which may also be studied using molecular genetics tools (Jurado-Rivera et al 2009;Navarro et al 2010). …”