Incorporating trnH-psbA to the core DNA barcodes improves significantly species discrimination within southern African Combretaceae

Recent studies indicate that the discriminatory power of the core DNA barcodes (rbcLa + matK) for land plants may have been overestimated since their performance have been tested only on few closely related species. In this study we focused mainly on how the addition of complementary barcodes (nrITS...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jephris Gere, Yessoufou Kowiyou, Barnabas Daru, Ledile Mankga, Olivier Maurin, Michelle van der Bank
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Pensoft Publishers 2013-12-01
Series:ZooKeys
Online Access:http://zookeys.pensoft.net/lib/ajax_srv/article_elements_srv.php?action=download_pdf&item_id=3084
Description
Summary:Recent studies indicate that the discriminatory power of the core DNA barcodes (rbcLa + matK) for land plants may have been overestimated since their performance have been tested only on few closely related species. In this study we focused mainly on how the addition of complementary barcodes (nrITS and trnH-psbA) to the core barcodes will affect the performance of the core barcodes in discriminating closely related species from family to section levels. In general, we found that the core barcodes performed poorly compared to the various combinations tested. Using multiple criteria, we finally advocated for the use of the core + trnH-psbA as potential DNA barcode for the family Combretaceae at least in southern Africa. Our results also indicate that the success of DNA barcoding in discriminating closely related species may be related to evolutionary and possibly the biogeographic histories of the taxonomic group tested.
ISSN:1313-2989
1313-2970