Tripura, located in the sub-Himalayan region of North-East India (NEI), is a part of one of the global biodiversity hotspots. Its diverse flora includes many economically important species of Zingiberaceae, which are endemic to forests of NEI regions. However, little information is available on the DNA barcoding of plants, especially from NEI regions. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of four candidate barcoding loci on thirteen species belonging to four genera of Zingiberaceae. The success rate for PCR amplification and DNA sequencing was 100% for ycf1b, rbcL, ITS and ITS2. Data indicated that the conserved sites were highest in ycf1b and the least in ITS. Conversely, ITS revealed greater interspecific and intraspecific variations compared to the other loci. Interestingly, the mean interspecific divergence of ycf1b was more than the intraspecific divergence with the presence of a barcode gap and it could separate all the samples in a species-specific manner in the single-locus tree-based analysis. On the other hand, rbcL, ITS and ITS2 loci failed to resolve all these species clearly. Overall, our findings indicated that ycf1b could be used as a prospective DNA barcode for accurate identification of the plant species of Zingiberaceae.

中文翻译：

---

印度东北部选定姜科物种的DNA条形码

Tripura位于印度东北亚（喜马拉雅）的喜马拉雅亚地区，是全球生物多样性热点之一的一部分。其多样化的植物区系包括姜科的许多重要经济物种，它们是NEI地区森林特有的。然而，关于植物DNA条形码的信息很少，特别是在NEI地区。在这里，我们评估了四个候选条形码基因座对姜科四个属的十三种物种的功效。ycf1b，rbcL，ITS和ITS2的PCR扩增和DNA测序的成功率为100％。数据表明保守位点在ycf1b中最高，而在ITS中最低。反过来，与其他基因座相比，ITS显示出更大的种间和种内变异。有趣的是，在存在条形码间隙的情况下，ycf1b的平均种间差异大于种内差异，并且它可以在基于单基因座树的分析中以物种特异性方式分离所有样品。另一方面，rbcL，ITS和ITS2基因座不能清楚地解析所有这些物种。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明ycf1b可以用作准分子DNA条形码，用于准确鉴定姜科植物。