DNA Barcoding of Prospective New Crayfish Species

Information regarding the project is under review and this page will be updated as soon as the paper is published.

Project description: Crayfish are an important ecological resource in freshwater systems, and understanding their taxonomic relationships is important for species delineation and conservation. DNA barcode analysis was performed on crayfish specimens spanning over 20 species to contribute to the determination of a potential new crayfish species from the state of [redacted] in the United States. Maximum-likelihood and Bayesian methods werer utilized to present phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA to represent possible evolutionary relationships between the proposed new species and other crayfish species found in [redacted]. Mitochondrial cytochrome-oxidase subunit I (mtCOI) and nuclear 16S ribosomal RNA (16S) regions of the genome were amplified for a small sample of unknown subjects; samples were then sequenced, aligned, and assembled alongside mtCOI and 16S sequences of known crayfish species cataloged in GenBank. The phylogenetic tree derived mtCO indicates a close relationship with the genus Cambarellus, while the 16S data suggest a closer relationship between the unknown specimens and the genus Procambarus. Further testing with more genes may help to resolve the relationship of the proposed new species.

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