Quantifying species diversity with a DNA barcoding-based method: Tibetan moth species (Noctuidae) on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.

ABSTRACT: With the ongoing loss of biodiversity, there is a great need for fast and effective ways to assess species richness and diversity: DNA barcoding provides a powerful new tool for this. We investigated this approach by focusing on the Tibetan plateau, which is one of the world's top biodiversity hotspots. There have been few studies of its invertebrates, although they constitute the vast majority of the region's diversity. Here we investigated species diversity of the lepidopteran family Noctuidae, across different environmental gradients, using measurements based on traditional morphology as well as on DNA barcoding. The COI barcode showed an average interspecific K2P distance of 9.45±2.08%, which is about four times larger than the mean intraspecific distance (1.85±3.20%). Using six divers

SUBMITTER: Jin Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3669328 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature