Assessing the effect of varying sequence length on DNA barcoding of fungi.

ABSTRACT: DNA barcoding shows enormous promise for the rapid identification of organisms at the species level. There has been much recent debate, however, about the need for longer barcode sequences, especially when these sequences are used to construct molecular phylogenies. Here, we have analysed a set of fungal mitochondrial sequences - of various lengths - and we have monitored the effect of reducing sequence length on the utility of the data for both species identification and phylogenetic reconstruction. Our results demonstrate that reducing sequence length has a profound effect on the accuracy of resulting phylogenetic trees, but surprisingly short sequences still yield accurate species identifications. We conclude that the standard short barcode sequences ( approximately 600 bp) are not suit

SUBMITTER: Min XJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1890918 | biostudies-literature | 2007 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature