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Abstract
The DNA barcoding gene COI (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I) effectively identifies many species. Herein, we barcoded 172 individuals from 37 species belonging to nine genera in Rhacophoridae to test if the gene serves equally well to identify species of tree frogs. Phenetic neighbor joining and phylogenetic Bayesian inference were used to construct phylogenetic trees, which resolved all nine genera as monophyletic taxa except for Rhacophorus, two new matrilines for Liuixalus, and Polypedates leucomystax species complex. Intraspecific genetic distances ranged from 0.000 to 0.119 and interspecific genetic distances ranged from 0.015 to 0.334. Within Rhacophorus and Kurixalus, the intra- and interspecific genetic distances did not reveal an obvious barcode gap. Notwithstanding, we found that COI sequences unambiguously identified rhacophorid species and helped to discover likely new cryptic species via the synthesis of genealogical relationships and divergence patterns. Our results supported that COI is an effective DNA barcoding marker for Rhacophoridae.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Prof. Timothy Moermond for proofreading the manuscript.
Declaration of interest
The authors report that they have no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31372173, 31411130190, 31101618), foundation of Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Tropical Animal and Plant Ecology, Hainan Normal University (No. 201501 to J.T. Li), and grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST Grant 2011FY120200, Grant 2005DKA21402).