Cytochrome C Oxidase Subunit 1 (COI) Profile of the Philippine Helicostylinae (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora: Camaenidae)
Gizelle A. Batomalaque1,4,*, Gerard Clinton L. Que1, Tyrill Adolf B. Itong5, Anna Regina L. Masanga1, Emmanuel Ryan C. de Chavez3, and Ian Kendrich C. Fontanilla1,2
1Insitute of Biology, College of Science,
University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City 1101 Philippines
2Natural Sciences Research Institute,
University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City 1101 Philippines
3Institute of Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences,
University of the Philippines Los Baños 4031 Laguna, Philippines
4Department of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Sciences,
College of Arts and Sciences, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA
5College of Science, University of the Philippines Cebu, Cebu City 6000 Philippines
*Corresponding Author: gabatomalaque@up.edu.ph
ABSTRACT
The Philippines is the center of radiation of the land snail subfamily Helicostylinae, with around 253 recognized species. Despite their morphological diversity, research on their biology and taxonomy is lacking. We present here the first mitochondrial COI profiles of 32 species of Philippine helicostyline land snails. With the addition of sequences downloaded from GenBank, we tested the utility of the COI for species identification. Relative distributions of intraspecific and interspecific distances overlapped; hence, no barcoding gap was observed. However, 90% of uncorrected interspecific comparisons can distinguish species at 14% genetic distance or lower. Furthermore, the COI barcodes could not discriminate several co-distributed species that have similar conchological features, which should be flagged for taxonomic re-evaluation.