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

By

Gere, Jephris
Yessoufou, Kowiyou
Daru, Barnabas
Mankga, Ledile
Maurin, Olivier
Bank, Michelle van der

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2013

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

365

Pages

129-147

Subjects

closely related species , Combretaceae , DNA barcoding , Southern Africa

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.365.5728

 

Abstract

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.