DNA barcoding identification of Dermestidae species

Abstract

Dermestidae species are important stored product insects. The traditional morphological identification has its limitation. The purpose of the study is to explore the effectiveness of identification by DNA barcoding technology in Dermestidae. The COI gene sequences of 39 samples from 17 species of Dermestidae were analyzed, and we evaluated the identification ability of the sequences by the tree building method and the distance evaluation method in this study. The COI sequences whose length was 356 bp had a large difference between intra-specific and inter-specific and a significant barcoding gap. The success rate of identification was 92.5%. The results showed a certain feasibility to identify the most species of Dermestidae by this segment of COI.

Keywords:

• COI gene
• Dermestidae
• DNA barcoding
• genetic distance
• species identification

Declaration of interest

This work was part of the Program on country “12 h Five-Year Plan” to support science and technology project of China (2012BAK11B03), Jiangsu Entry–Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau project (2013KJ55 and 2014KJ44) and General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine project (2014IK023 and 2015IK156).