The complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Otus scops (Aves, Strigiformes, Strigidae)

Abstract

The Eurasian scops owl Otus scops (Aves, Strigiformes, Strigidae) is small typical owl belonging to the family Strigidae. The complete mitochondrial genome sequence consisted of 17413 base pairs encoding 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNAs, 22 transfer RNAs, and non-coding regions. The overall base composition of O. scops was G + C: 46.2%, A + T: 53.8%, apparently with a slight AT bias. Phylogenetic analysis showed that O. scops was closely related to the widespread owl genera Asio and Ninox.

Keywords:

• Strigidae
• Otus scops
• Eurasian scops owl

The Eurasian scops owl Otus scops (Aves, Strigiformes, Strigidae) is small typical owl belonging to the family Strigidae. O scops breeds in southern Europe eastwards into western and central Asia. Now there are about 45 living species in genus Otus, but new ones are still recognized every few years. Despite the discovery of many species, there is no record on the whole mitochondrial genome of this genus. O scops was collected by at Yeongju-si Branch of Korea Society for the Protection of Wild Animals in Yeongu-si city (36.816655 N 128.480288 E), Republic of Korea. This specimen was deposited in Institute of Ornithology, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea.

In the present study, the mitogenome of O. scops was completely sequenced and submitted to GenBank: (accession number: KT340630). The sequence was compared with a previously reported mitogenome sequence of Asio flammeus (Zhang et al. 2016). The mitochondrial DNA was amplified into two overlapping segments by a long-range PCR method (Koh et al. 2018). DNA shotgun sequencing was operated by an Ion PGM™ system (Life Technologies, Gaithersburg, MD), and genome assembly was carried out using the CLC Genomics Workbench 7.5 program (CLC Bio, Aarhus, Denmark) (Park et al. 2018).

The mitogenome was 17413 bp in size, consisting of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 2 ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs) genes, 22 transfer RNAs (tRNAs), and non-coding region. All the PCGs (ND1, ND2, CO1, CO2, ATP8, ATP6, CO3, ND4L, ND4, CytB, ND6) shared start codon “ATG”, except for ND3 (start codon “ATA”) and ND5 (start codon “GTG”). Regarding the stop codons, 6 PCGs (CO2, ATP8, ATP6, ND3, ND4L, ND5) shared stop codon “TAA”, 4 PCGs (ND2, CO3, ND4, CytB) shared the incomplete stop codon “T”, ND1 terminated with AGA, CO1 terminated with AGG and ND6 terminated with TAG. The two rRNA genes were 12S rRNA (983 bases) and 16S rRNA (1584 bases). The D-loop (1843 bases) was located between tRNA-Glu and tRNA-Phe. The overall base composition of O. scops was G: 13.4%, C: 32.8%, A: 30.8%, T: 23.0%, apparently with a slight AT bias (G + C: 46.2%, A + T: 53.8%).

We compared the results from the present study to previous mitogenome research on the family Strigidae (Harrison et al. 2004; Liu et al. 2014; Sarker et al. 2016; Sun et al. 2016; Zhang et al. 2016; Hanna et al. 2017; Kang et al. 2018; Lee et al. 2018). Phylogenetic analysis based on the mitogenome sequences using the maximum likelihood general time reversible model with gamma distributed (G) plus Invariant sites (I) method showed that the O. scops was closely related to the widespread owl genera Asio and Ninox (Figure 1). Thus, the O. scops mitogenome sequence can contribute to phylogenetic knowledge of the genus Otus and expand the basis of the owl species.

Figure 1. A maximum likelihood tree of Otus scops with the related species based on mitogenomes using general time reversible model (GTR) with gamma distributed (G) plus Invariant sites (I) method.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors take complete responsibility for the content and writing of this article.