Rapid, large-scale species discovery in hyperdiverse taxa using 1D MinION sequencing.

ABSTRACT:

Background

More than 80% of all animal species remain unknown to science. Most of these species live in the tropics and belong to animal taxa that combine small body size with high specimen abundance and large species richness. For such clades, using morphology for species discovery is slow because large numbers of specimens must be sorted based on detailed microscopic investigations. Fortunately, species discovery could be greatly accelerated if DNA sequences could be used for sorting specimens to species. Morphological verification of such "molecular operational taxonomic units" (mOTUs) could then be based on dissection of a small subset of specimens. However, this approach requires cost-effective and low-tech DNA barcoding techniques because well-equipped, well-funded molecular

SUBMITTER: Srivathsan A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6884855 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature