title: Evaluation of the efficacy of twelve mitochondrial protein-coding genes as barcodes for mollusk DNA barcoding.
abstract: In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of 12 mitochondrial protein-coding genes from 238 mitochondrial genomes of 140 molluscan species as potential DNA barcodes for mollusks. Three barcoding methods (distance, monophyly and character-based methods) were used in species identification. The species recovery rates based on genetic distances for the 12 genes ranged from 70.83 to 83.33%. There were no significant differences in intra- or interspecific variability among the 12 genes. The monophyly and character-based methods provided higher resolution than the distance-based method in species delimitation. Especially in closely related taxa, the character-based method showed some advantages. The results suggested that besides the standard COI barcode, other 11 mitochondrial protein-coding genes could also be potentially used as a molecular diagnostic for molluscan species discrimination. Our results also showed that the combination of mitochondrial genes did not enhance the efficacy for species identification and a single mitochondrial gene would be fully competent.
authors.affiliation: a The Key Laboratory of Mariculture , Ministry of Education, Ocean University of China , Qingdao , China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: a The Key Laboratory of Mariculture , Ministry of Education, Ocean University of China , Qingdao , China.
authors.forename: Lingfeng
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.affiliation: a The Key Laboratory of Mariculture , Ministry of Education, Ocean University of China , Qingdao , China.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D058893:DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D024101:Mitochondrial Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D049878:Mytilus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D024101:Mitochondrial Proteins
keywords: DNA barcoding; mitochondrial; mollusks