DNA barcoding echinoderms of the east coast of South Africa

Background: According to the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD, http://www.boldsystems.org), approximately a fourth of the described echinoderm species have been already barcoded (more than 2000 species barcoded out of the about 8000 species described). However, only fewer than 300 of the ~ 29 000 e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inGenome Vol. 60; no. 11; p. 992
Main Authors Samyn, Yves, Sonet, Gontran, Smitz, Nathalie, Meganck, Kenny
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Ottawa Canadian Science Publishing NRC Research Press 01.11.2017
Subjects
Bar codes
Biodiversity
Coastal environments
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
Echinodermata
Fish
Gene sequencing
New records
New species
Oceans
Physical characteristics
Taxonomy
South Africa
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Summary:Background: According to the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD, http://www.boldsystems.org), approximately a fourth of the described echinoderm species have been already barcoded (more than 2000 species barcoded out of the about 8000 species described). However, only fewer than 300 of the ~ 29 000 echinoderm barcode records available on BOLD are from South Africa, a country with a coastline of more than 2500 km on both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In an effort to explore the echinoderm diversity of South Africa, we barcoded 351 specimens collected during five different campaigns (from 1999 to 2016) in the North and South of the KwaZulu-Natal Province, across two distinct offshore environments. Results: Cross comparison between morphological and molecular identification allowed distinguishing ~114 species, including a number of new records for the country and some putative new species. These included Crinoidea (96 specimens and ~10 species), Ophiuroidea (95 specimens and ~ 44 species), Asteroidea (48 specimens and ~19 species), Echinoidea (27 specimens and ~12 species), and Holothuroidea (85 specimens and ~29 species). Nonetheless, DNA barcoding revealed unexpected large intraspecific distances (suggesting additional overlooked species) as well as clusters of heterospecific sequences (suggesting either poor marker resolution or the need for further taxonomical consideration). DNA barcodes obtained for more than 40 specimens showed distances of more than 1% with the DNA barcodes currently available in BOLD and GenBank. Significance: This data set will be further investigated using integrative taxonomy and will deliver a valuable addition to the reference library of DNA barcodes for echinoderms.
ISSN:0831-2796
1480-3321