Book Description
Most popular sources state that there are two key species of shore fly at Great Salt Lake. But there is little known about their distribution. ... DNA barcoding is a technique used to identify and distinguish species. ... DNA barcodes constitute a relatively short specific sequence of the mitochondrial gene Cytochrome Oxidase I, that has been agreed upon as the standard. Cytochrome Oxidase I mitochondrial region (COI) has become the standardized area for barcoding. ... In addition to COI, there are other DNA sequences that are useful in identifying species. One of these is the internal transcribed space 1 region, or ITS-1. ... The purpose of this study was to examine sequences of both COI and ITS-1 obtained for four species of Great Salt Lake shore flies. The principle objective was to identify species of shore fly and create barcodes for each. The second objective was to compare intraspecific and interspecific sequence variation for both COI and ITS-1. Barcodes performed on shore flies of Great Salt Lake will add to the international effort to barcode every living species. The results of this study can be used to help support the strength of COI as a standard biological barcode as well as the appropriate use of ITS-1 as a tool in genetic variation studies in closely related species.