Molecular thresholds of ITS2 and their implications for molecular evolution and species identification in seed plants.

ABSTRACT: Although molecular data have revealed huge amounts of plant diversity, interpreting genetic diversity into entities corresponding to species is still challenging. Taxonomic ranking based on genetic distance has been used extensively, but the results have been open to dispute, while the application of the strategy to plants has been restricted to a small number of cases. Here, levels of internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) sequence variation were examined from 17,203 sequences, representing 5,439 species in 113 genera of seed plants, to ascertain the association between species status and their molecular divergence. Our results showed that, although the average genetic distances of sister species (AGDS) varied among angiosperms, the mean value was 3.98% and seemed not to be influenced by hi

SUBMITTER: Qin Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5725418 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature