DNA barcoding and the differentiation between North American and West European Phormia regina (Diptera, Calliphoridae, Chrysomyinae)

By

Jordaens, Kurt
Sonet, Gontran
Braet, Yves
De Meyer, Marc
Backeljau, Thierry
Goovaerts, Frankie
Bourguignon, Luc
Desmyter, Stijn

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2013

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

365

Pages

149-174

Subjects

16S , 28S , Black fly , COI , COII , cyt b , ITS2

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.365.6202

 

Abstract

Phormia regina (the black fly) is a common Holarctic blow fly species which serves as a primary indicator taxon to estimate minimal post mortem intervals. It is also a major research model in physiological and neurological studies on insect feeding. Previous studies have shown a sequence divergence of up to 4.3% in the mitochondrial COI gene between W European and N American P. regina populations. Here, we DNA barcoded P. regina specimens from six N American and 17 W European populations and confirmed a mean sequence divergence of ca. 4% between the populations of the two continents, while sequence divergence within each continent was a ten-fold lower. Comparable mean mtDNA sequence divergences were observed for COII (3.7 %) and cyt b (5.3 %), but mean divergence was lower for 16S (0.4–0.6 %). Intercontinental divergence at nuclear DNA was very low (≤ 0.1 % for both 28S and ITS2), and we did not detect any morphological differentiation between N American and W European specimens. Therefore, we consider the strong differentiation at COI, COII and cyt b as intraspecific mtDNA sequence divergence that should be taken into account when using P. regina in forensic casework or experimental research.