Assessing the Diversity of Cursorial Spiders using DNA Barcoding
Assessing the Diversity of Cursorial Spiders using DNA Barcoding
Sehrish Ashraaf1, Hafiz Muhammad Tahir1* and Sajida Naseem2
ABSTRACT
Spiders are natural predators of many insect pests and preferred as they are carnivores. In the present study we identified the cursorial spiders of different families using DNA barcoding as it is very helpful in identifying species where morphological identifications can be difficult e.g., delimitation of juvenile stages. Standard barcode region of CO1 gene of 64 samples was amplified. The sequences of 658 base pairs were recovered from 62 samples, representing 7 families, 20 genera and 27 species. Araneidae was the most dominant familyfollowed by Salticidae, Oxyopidae, Clubionidae, Tetragnathida, Thomisidae, Mitergidae and Lycosidae. The interspecific value of divergence was more than the intraspecific value of divergence for all seven families which described a clear barcode gap. Nooverlap was recorded in intraspecific and interspecific divergence value. Furthermore, distance to NN was higher than themaximum intraspecific value for all species. A barcode reference library of the cursorial spiders of Punjab University, Lahore and Soon Sakeser Valley Punjab was also established. It is concluded that CO1 has potentially enough information for fast and accurate identification of spiders. Although, morphological studies alone are working satisfactory for the identification of spiders, still its efficiency increased when combined with DNA barcoding.
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February 2021
Vol. 53, Iss. 1, Pages 1-400
