title: A simulation study of sample size for DNA barcoding.
abstract: For some groups of organisms, DNA barcoding can provide a useful tool in taxonomy, evolutionary biology, and biodiversity assessment. However, the efficacy of DNA barcoding depends on the degree of sampling per species, because a large enough sample size is needed to provide a reliable estimate of genetic polymorphism and for delimiting species. We used a simulation approach to examine the effects of sample size on four estimators of genetic polymorphism related to DNA barcoding: mismatch distribution, nucleotide diversity, the number of haplotypes, and maximum pairwise distance. Our results showed that mismatch distributions derived from subsamples of ≥20 individuals usually bore a close resemblance to that of the full dataset. Estimates of nucleotide diversity from subsamples of ≥20 individuals tended to be bell-shaped around that of the full dataset, whereas estimates from smaller subsamples were not. As expected, greater sampling generally led to an increase in the number of haplotypes. We also found that subsamples of ≥20 individuals allowed a good estimate of the maximum pairwise distance of the full dataset, while smaller ones were associated with a high probability of underestimation. Overall, our study confirms the expectation that larger samples are beneficial for the efficacy of DNA barcoding and suggests that a minimum sample size of 20 individuals is needed in practice for each population.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution Institute of Zoology Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100101 China.
authors.forename: Arong
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution Institute of Zoology Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100101 China; School of Statistics and Mathematics Yunnan University of Finance and Economics Kunming 650221 China.
authors.forename: Haiqiang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lan
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Technology College of Information Science and Technology Beijing University of Chemical Technology Beijing 100029 China.
authors.forename: Cheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ling
authors.affiliation: College of Life Sciences Capital Normal University Beijing 100048 China.
authors.forename: Aibing
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Statistics and Mathematics Yunnan University of Finance and Economics Kunming 650221 China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences University of Sydney Sydney New South Wales 2006 Australia.
authors.forename: Simon Y W
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution Institute of Zoology Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100101 China; College of Life Sciences University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100049 China.
authors.forename: Chaodong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhu
keywords: Coalescence; haplotype; maximum pairwise distance; mismatch distribution; nucleotide diversity
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