Taxacom: Barcodes and species

[David Campbell]

As Rich has put it, mitochondrial DNA is certainly a useful tool, but not
always reliable.  Even within mitochondrial DNA, an entire mitogenome may
give somewhat different results from a single barcode gene.  Relationships
of certain anodontine mussels make better geographic sense from phylogeny
of the amino acid sequences of all mitochondrial proteins than they do in
COI barcode-based phylogenies, for example.

Many bivalves have a doubly uniparental mitochondrial inheritance pattern,
where there is a male mitochondrial gene type associated with gametes and a
female mitochondrial gene type in somatic tissue of all individuals and in
female gonads, as another example of mitochondrial gene variation within
species.


-- 
Dr. David Campbell
Professor, Geology
Department of Natural Sciences
110 S Main St, #7270
Gardner-Webb University
Boiling Springs NC 28017