Abstract

PEREZ-FLORES, Oscar; TOLEDO-HERNANDEZ, Víctor Hugo  and  ZALDIVAR-RIVERON, Alejandro. Barcoding for detecting taxonomic problems in Cerambycidae (Coleoptera: Chrysomeloidea) from a dry tropical forest. Rev. Mex. Biodiv. [online]. 2017, vol.88, n.1, pp.71-79. ISSN 2007-8706.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmb.2017.01.014.

DNA barcoding, besides accelerating species identification, also allows the detection of taxonomic problems in groups where the morphological information is not conclusive. This paper presents a faunistic study of the family Cerambycidae (Coleoptera) from the Chamela Biological Station in Jalisco, Mexico, using both morphological and DNA barcoding evidence. We collected 720 specimens, of which 144 species were identified belonging to 82 genera, 34 tribes and 4 subfamilies. Eleven of these species are new records for the region, 8 for the state of Jalisco and 1 for Mexico. We analyzed 217 sequences for 120 of the discriminated morphospecies. From these sequences, we delimited 132 molecular taxonomic units based on the 2% genetic divergence criterion, 110 of which were consistent with morphological identification. The use of molecular information allowed us to detect taxonomic problems in 8 species with considerable morphological variation. This work represents the first faunistic study for the family in Mexico using the DNA barcoding locus as a tool to delimit species.

Keywords : Taxonomy; Cytochrome oxidase I; Mexico; Neotropical; Insecta.