Barcoding South American Birds

LIJTMAER, DARÍO A.; TUBARO, PABLO L.

Encyclopedia of Life Science

John Wiley & Sons

Año: 2010; p. 1 - 7

DNA barcoding, a genetic-based species identification system, has proven to be highly effective. The project to barcode all the birds of the world was one of the first campaigns tobe launchedandover30%of the species have been already barcoded. The Neotropics are the most biodiverse region of the planet, including almost 4000 species of birds, and barcoding its avifauna is therefore vital for the project. Most of the progress within this region has been made in South America, including the first large-scale barcode study of Neotropical vertebrates, which is being carried out in Argentina. This study has shown that barcoding is highly efficient in the southern Neotropics, allowing there cognition of more than 98%of bird species. Large-scale barcoding surveys also allow flagging interesting species or groups of species worthy of deeper analysis, studying avian diversification and analysing continental patterns of evolution, biogeography and speciation.