‘Biodiversity’ means the variety of life and it can be studied at different levels (genetic, species, ecosystem) and scales (spatial and temporal). Last decades showed that marine biodiversity has been severely underestimated at all levels. In order to investigate diversity patterns and underlying processes, there is a need to know what species live in the marine environment. An emerging tool f...

ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES, NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY, RALEIGH, NC 27695, USA, KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, THUWAL 23955-6900, SAUDI ARABIA, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COASTAL WATER RESEARCH PROJECT, COSTA MESA, CA 92626, USA, 5 SCHOOL OF MARINE SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF MAINE, WALPOLE, ME 04573, USA AND CANADIAN CENTRE FOR DNA BARCODING, BIODIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF ONTARIO, UNIVERS...

DNA barcoding provides a way to label myriad of different biological molecules using the extreme programmability in sequence synthesis. Fluorescence imaging is presumably most easy-to-access method for barcoding, yet large spectral overlaps between fluorescence dyes severely limit numbers barcodes that can be detected simultaneously. We here demonstrate use single-molecule resonance energy tran...

Mimicry and extensive geographical subspecies polymorphism combine to make species in the ithomiine butterfly genus Mechanitis (Lepidoptera; Nymphalidae) difficult to determine. We use mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) barcoding, nuclear sequences and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) genotyping to investigate species limits in this genus. Although earlier biosystematic studies based on mor...

It is a risky task to attempt to predict the direction that DNA barcoding and its applications may take in the future. In a very short time, the endeavor of DNA barcoding has gone from being a tool to facilitate taxonomy in difficult to identify species, to an ambitious, global initiative that seeks to tackle such pertinent and challenging issues as quantifying global biodiversity, revolutioniz...

BACKGROUND Dioscorea is an important plant genus in terms of food supply and pharmaceutical applications. However, its classification and identification are controversial. DNA barcoding is a recent aid to taxonomic identification and uses a short standardized DNA region to discriminate plant species. In this study, the applicability of three candidate DNA barcodes (rbcL, matK, and psbA-trnH) to...

Intragenomic variation is the molecular within genome among repetitive DNA. As a multigene family, nuclear ribosomal DNA (rDNA) has been widely used in fungal taxonomy for their ease amplification and suitable variability to attain various levels of taxonomic resolution. At intraspecific level, rDNA believed be under concerted evolution internal transcribed spacers (ITS) region actually accepte...

Correct species identification is the basis of ecological studies. Nevertheless, morphological examination alone may not be enough to tell species apart. Here, our integrated molecular and morphological studies demonstrate that the relatively widespread and common neotropical parasitoid wasp Pimpla croceipes Cresson, 1874 (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae: Pimplinae) actually consists of two distinct...