Figures of merit and statistics for detecting faulty species identification with DNA barcodes: A case study in Ramaria and related fungal genera.

ABSTRACT: DNA barcoding can identify biological species and provides an important tool in diverse applications, such as conserving species and identifying pathogens, among many others. If combined with statistical tests, DNA barcoding can focus taxonomic scrutiny onto anomalous species identifications based on morphological features. Accordingly, we put nonparametric tests into a taxonomic context to answer questions about our sequence dataset of the formal fungal barcode, the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS). For example, does DNA barcoding concur with annotated species identifications significantly better if expert taxonomists produced the annotations? Does species assignment improve significantly if sequences are restricted to lengths greater than 500 bp? Both questions require

SUBMITTER: Martin MP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7437900 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature