The first DNA barcode library of Chironomidae from the Tibetan Plateau with an evaluation of the status of the public databases

Wu Han; Hongqu Tang; Lili Wei; Enlou Zhang

doi:10.1002/ece3.9849

The first DNA barcode library of Chironomidae from the Tibetan Plateau with an evaluation of the status of the public databases

Ecol Evol. 2023 Feb 27;13(2):e9849. doi: 10.1002/ece3.9849. eCollection 2023 Feb.

Authors

Wu Han^{1

2}, Hongqu Tang³, Lili Wei³, Enlou Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology Chinese Academy of Science Nanjing China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100039 China.
³ Life Science and Technology College Jinan University Guangzhou China.

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to curate a COI barcode library of Chironomidae from the Tibetan Plateau (TP) as an essential supplement to the public database. Another aim is to evaluate the current status of the public database of Chironomidae in aspects of taxonomic coverage, geographic representation, barcode quality, and efficiency for molecular identification, the Tibetan Plateau, China. In this study, 512 individuals of Chironomidae from the TP were identified based on morphological taxonomy and barcode analysis. The metadata of public records of Chironomidae were downloaded from the BOLD, and the quality of the public barcodes was ranked using the BAGS program. The reliability of the public library for molecular identification was evaluated with the newly curated library using the BLAST method. The newly curated library comprised 159 barcode species of 54 genera, of which 58.4% of species were likely new to science. There were great gaps in the taxonomic coverage and geographic representation in the public database, and only 29.18% of barcodes were identified at the species level. The quality of the public database was of concern, with only 20% of species being determined as concordant between BINs and morphological species. The accuracy of molecular identification using the public database was poor, and about 50% of matched barcodes could be correctly identified at the species level at the identity threshold of 97%. Based on these data, some recommendations are included here for improving barcoding studies on Chironomidae. The species richness of Chironomidae from the TP is much higher than ever recorded. Barcodes from more taxonomic groups and geographic regions are urgently needed to fill the great gap in the current public database of Chironomidae. Users should take caution when public databases are adopted as reference libraries for the taxonomic assignment.

Keywords: China; DNA barcoding; Tibetan Plateau; cryptic diversity; integrative taxonomy; nonbiting midges.