Colin, L;
Abed-Navandi, D;
Conde, DA;
Craggs, J;
da Silva, R;
Janse, M;
Källström, B;
... Yesson, C; + view all
(2022)
What's left in the tank? Identification of non-ascribed aquarium's coral collections with DNA barcodes as part of an integrated diagnostic approach.
Conservation Genetics Resources
, 14
pp. 167-182.
10.1007/s12686-021-01250-3.
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Abstract
The unprecedented threats to coral reef ecosystems from global climate change require an urgent response from the aquarium community, which is becoming an increasingly vital coral conservation resource. Unfortunately, many hermatypic corals in aquaria are not identified to species level, which hinders assessment of their conservation significance. Traditional methods of species identification using morphology can be challenging, especially to non-taxonomists. DNA barcoding is an option for species identification of Scleractinian corals, especially when used in concert with morphology-based assessment. This study uses DNA barcodes to try to identify aquarium specimens of the diverse reef-forming genus Acropora from 127 samples. We identified to our best current knowledge, to species name 44% of the analysed samples and provided provisional identification for 80% of them (101/127, in the form of a list of species names with associate confidence values). We highlighted a sampling bias in public nucleotide sequences repertories (e.g. GenBank) towards more charismatic and more studied species, even inside a well-studied genus like Acropora. In addition, we showed a potential "single observer" effect with over a quarter of the reference sequences used for these identifications coming from the same study. We propose the use of barcoding and query matching as an additional tool for taxonomic experts and general aquarists, as an additional tool to increase their chances of making high confidence species-level identifications. We produce a standardised and easily repeatable methodology to increase the capacity of aquariums and other facilities to assess non-ascribed species, emphasising the value of integrating this approach with morphological identification optimising usage of authoritative identification guides and expert opinion. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12686-021-01250-3.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | What's left in the tank? Identification of non-ascribed aquarium's coral collections with DNA barcodes as part of an integrated diagnostic approach |
| Location: | Netherlands |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s12686-021-01250-3 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-021-01250-3 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Aquarium, Blast match, Coral, DNA barcoding, Identification, Species |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10141771 |
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