02298nas a2200277 4500008004100000022001900041245012200060210006900182260001200251300001200263490000800275520141300283653000801696653001201704653001801716653002401734653001901758653001801777100001701795700001401812700001501826700001501841700001401856700001701870856013301887 2013 eng d aISSN 0937-982700aIdentification of forensically important Sarcophaga species (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) using the mitochondrial COI gene0 aIdentification of forensically important Sarcophaga species Dipt c03/2013 a491-5040 v1273 a

The identification of species of the forensically important genus Sarcophaga is very difficult and requires strong taxonomic expertise. In this study we sequenced the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene (COI) of 126 specimens of 56 W European Sarcophaga species. As such we established the first COI database for West European Sarcophaga. We added existing data to our database to yield a total dataset of 270 COI sequences from 99 species to evaluate the COI gene as a molecular diagnostic tool for species identification in this genus. Using two simple criteria (Best Match and Best Close Match) we showed that the identification success using a mini-barcode region of 127 bp was very low (<61%). The identification success using the standard barcode region (658 bp) or using the entire COI region (1535 bp) was similar but relatively low: 75-80%. This was mainly due to specimens that were only represented by a single sequence in the dataset. Omitting these species resulted in a strong increase of the identification success: 96.9-98.5%. This success was even further increased when applying a nucleotide-based analysis but the latter may not be suitable for decision making. Even though the COI gene seems suitable to discriminate among most Sarcophaga species, additional markers will be necessary to achieve a 100% identification success.

10acoi10adiptera10aDNA Barcoding10aForensic entomology10aidentification10aSarcophagidae1 aJordaens, K.1 aSonet, G.1 aRichet, R.1 aDupont, E.1 aBraet, Y.1 aDesmyter, S. uhttp://seag-insectes.com/fr/content/identification-forensically-important-sarcophaga-species-diptera-sarcophagidae-using-mitocho