Researchers may be a step closer to "reliable and cost-effective species recognition.
Looking at solely morphological features when determining a species can result in misidentification; looking at short DNA sequences (DNA barcodes) has proven to be a much more accurate identification method. This method works for both plants and animals, a Pensoft Publishers news release reported.
Researchers have had an especially hard time identifying palm trees fromNorth Africa and the Middle East that are members of the Phoenix genus by looks alone.
These tree species are also prone to hybridization, which can make identifying them even more difficult.
A research team looked over various chloroplast DNA in hopes of finding "barcode" that would make Phoenix identification easier. The researchers scanned over 130 palm individuals from 13 or 14 Phoenix species in order to make their findings.
The researchers pinpointed enough DNA variation to effectively identify eight of the analyzed species and 82 percent of the individuals.
"It's a very encouraging result," Marco Ballardini, a biologist at that time research assistant at the Consiglio per la Ricerca e la Sperimentazione in Agricoltura (CRA-FSO) in Sanremo, Italy, and first author of this study, said. "Finding the appropriate DNA barcode for Phoenix palms has several practical applications, ranging from the conservation of endemic and/or endangered species, like the Canary Island date palm, or the Cretan date palm, to the identification of hybrids having an ornamental value."
The new identification method could also help researchers preserve genetic characteristics in Phoenix species by identifying hybrids.
"To achieve a 100 [percent] success in identifying Phoenix palms, we have to analyze a few more regions of DNA, especially in the case of closely related species. Moreover, as the chloroplast DNA is inherited only through the maternal lineage, DNA of paternal origin should also be taken into consideration, in order to detect all possible hybrids," Ballardini said.
