Species diversity and phylogeographical affinities of the Branchiopoda (Crustacea) of Churchill, Manitoba, Canada.

ABSTRACT: The region of Churchill, Manitoba, contains a wide variety of habitats representative of both the boreal forest and arctic tundra and has been used as a model site for biodiversity studies for nearly seven decades within Canada. Much previous work has been done in Churchill to study the Daphnia pulex species complex in particular, but no study has completed a wide-scale survey on the crustacean species that inhabit Churchill's aquatic ecosystems using molecular markers. We have employed DNA barcoding to study the diversity of the Branchiopoda (Crustacea) in a wide variety of freshwater habitats and to determine the likely origins of the Churchill fauna following the last glaciation. The standard animal barcode marker (COI) was sequenced for 327 specimens, and a 3% divergence threshold was

SUBMITTER: Jeffery NW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3096620 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature