Utility of GenBank and the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) for the identification of forensically important Diptera from Belgium and France.
Fly larvae living on dead corpses can be used to estimate post-mortem intervals. The identification of these flies is decisive in forensic casework and can be facilitated by using DNA barcodes provided that a representative and comprehensive reference library of DNA barcodes is available. We constructed a local (Belgium and France) reference library of 85 sequences of the COI DNA barcode fragment (mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene), from 16 fly species of forensic interest (Calliphoridae, Muscidae, Fanniidae). This library was then used to evaluate the ability of two public libraries (GenBank and the Barcode of Life Data Systems - BOLD) to identify specimens from Belgian and French forensic cases. The public libraries indeed allow a correct identification of most specimens. Yet, some of the identifications remain ambiguous and some forensically important fly species are not, or insufficiently, represented in the reference libraries. Several search options offered by GenBank and BOLD can be used to further improve the identifications obtained from both libraries using DNA barcodes.
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, OD Taxonomy and Phylogeny (JEMU), Vautierstraat 29, 1000 Brussels, Belgium.
Gontran
G
Sonet
Royal Museum for Central Africa, Department of Biology (JEMU), Leuvensesteenweg 13, 3080 Tervuren, Belgium ; University of Antwerp, Evolutionary Ecology Group, Groenenborgerlaan 171, 2020 Antwerp, Belgium.
Kurt
K
Jordaens
National Institute of Criminalistics and Criminology, Vilvoordsesteenweg 100, 1120 Brussels, Belgium.
Yves
Y
Braet
National Institute of Criminalistics and Criminology, Vilvoordsesteenweg 100, 1120 Brussels, Belgium.
Luc
L
Bourguignon
National Institute of Criminalistics and Criminology, Vilvoordsesteenweg 100, 1120 Brussels, Belgium.
Eréna
E
Dupont
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, OD Taxonomy and Phylogeny (JEMU), Vautierstraat 29, 1000 Brussels, Belgium ; University of Antwerp, Evolutionary Ecology Group, Groenenborgerlaan 171, 2020 Antwerp, Belgium.
Thierry
T
Backeljau
Royal Museum for Central Africa, Department of Biology (JEMU), Leuvensesteenweg 13, 3080 Tervuren, Belgium.
Marc
M
De Meyer
National Institute of Criminalistics and Criminology, Vilvoordsesteenweg 100, 1120 Brussels, Belgium.
Stijn
S
Desmyter
BLAST; COI; DNA barcoding; Forensic entomology