Does a barcoding gap exist in prokaryotes? Evidences from species delimitation in cyanobacteria.

ABSTRACT: The amount of information that is available on 16S rRNA sequences for prokaryotes thanks to high-throughput sequencing could allow a better understanding of diversity. Nevertheless, the application of predetermined threshold in genetic distances to identify units of diversity (Operative Taxonomic Units, OTUs) may provide biased results. Here we tests for the existence of a barcoding gap in several groups of Cyanobacteria, defining units of diversity according to clear differences between within-species and among-species genetic distances in 16S rRNA. The application of a tool developed for animal DNA taxonomy, the Automatic Barcode Gap Detector (ABGD), revealed that a barcoding gap could actually be found in almost half of the datasets that we tested. The identification of units of diversi

SUBMITTER: Eckert EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4390840 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature