DNA Barcoding of Pest Rodents: An Approach in Integrated Rodent Pest Management
DNA Barcoding of Pest Rodents: An Approach in Integrated Rodent Pest Management
R.L. Rengarajan1,2*, G. Archunan1,3, B. Balamuralikrishnan4, I. Peatrise Geofferina5 and A. Vijaya Anand5
ABSTRACT
The most significant vertebrate pests in agriculture are rodents and their habitation, dispersal, mass, and productive importance differs depending upon the intake of crops, climatic seasons, and terrestrial areas across India. Molecular identification using DNA barcoding with the COI gene provides a high level of taxonomic differentiation (>95%) at the species level. An attempt was made to identify certain pest species of rodent namely Bandicota indica, Rattus rattus, Millardia meltada, and Tatera indica, from six different places through the COI gene in the context of rodent pest management program (RPM). The present study also covered the population survey, seasonal variation, and species of rodent pest morphology. The study revealed that the number of rodents seems to be equal in pre-monsoon and post-monsoon and there is a seasonal variation between the numbers of species in different localities. However, there were no morphological changes within the species. The present investigation showed that there were no intra-specific nucleotide alterations within M. meltada and T. indica and low intraspecific variation within B. indica and R. rattus at a greatest 0.3% and 0.5%, respectively. T. indica and R. rattus had the most elevated interspecific divergence, around 22%, and M. meltada and B. indica had the lowest, around 4%. The current results revealed that the COI gene’s 650 bp is accurate for the finding of major species of rodents from other species. Consequently, molecular identification of individual rodent pest species would generally assist to develop rodent pest programs by using species-specific (i.e., Pheromone) compounds.
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