Unraveling the diversity, phylogeny, and ecological role of cryptic Coleopteran species of Vadodara district: a first comparative approach from India

Abstract

Background: More than 350 K described species, Coleoptera (beetles) represent the most diverse order from Class Insecta in the entire animal kingdom. However, their phylogeny is highly controversial due to their morphological crypticness and multiple markers used previously for sequence homology. Although many studies suggest that their diversity currently relies majorly on morphological analysis, nevertheless DNA barcodes may provide a functional, standardized tool for their unique identification. In the present report, a fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene has been proposed as standard DNA barcoding marker for the identification of organisms. Result: To evaluate this hypothesis, a random sampling was conducted in and around Vadodara, Gujarat, where 2690 individual of 65 species belonging to 16 families were reported from different sites, and diversity indices were employed to unravel the species composition of that habitat. Further, 12 beetles from dominant families were selected for sequence analysis using various bioinformatics tools and were compared with the rest of the beetles to obtain a more robust phylogeny which is not reported earlier in previous studies.