Chinese mystery snail, Cipangopaludina chinensis, phylogenetic analysis and barcoding: Pevensey Levels, Sussex; and Southampton, Hampshire.
Abstract
This study was commissioned to build on the qPCR assay developed for detecting Cipangopaludina chinensis by ADAS in 2021 (NECR410). The qPCR successfully distinguished between C. chinensis and other co-occurring species. The only exception to this was Cipangopaludina cathayensis a very closely related species. C. chinensis and C. cathayensis are distinguishable via various anatomical characteristics but have very similar COI sequences which prevented the development of species-specific primers. To confirm the species identity at both Pevensey Levels and Southampton sites as the taxonomically identified C. chinensis, Natural England collected a total of 15 specimens for DNA sequencing (Cytochrome Oxidase subunit I gene (COI)) and phylogenetic analysis. Sequences generated were submitted to BLAST using default parameters and BOLD using 'species level barcode records' for species identification. MEGA was used to allow all specimens to be included in a single phylogenetic tree constructed with various Bellamya snail species (five); Cipangopaludina snail species (four), Viviparus snail species (two), Margarya snail species (two), Pleuropoma jana was used as an outgroup (Wang et al, 2017). This study has shown the specimens collected from Pevensey and Southampton to be a very close match to sequences belonging to Cipangopaludina chinensis. It should be noted that there is still some uncertainty involved in the identification of the Pevensey and Southampton specimens so we would also recommend that longer sequences and/or complete mitochondrial genomes are sequenced to try and improve the specimen identification as the sequences used within this study were relatively short.