R&D CENTER

Complete mitochondrial genome of Dolichoderus sibiricus Emery, 1889, as a first step for phylogeny of Korean ants

Jonghyun Park, Woochan Kwon, and Jongsun Park
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Ants are one of successfully evolved species occupying all kinds of unique niches. Even though this importance, molecular studies of ants have not been conducted enough: One of examples is that complete mitochondrial genomes of only 24 out of 13,382 species all over the world are available. In Korea, more than 120 species have been recorded, among which five species are native to Korea and two species have been introduced in Korea. All except two species belong to three hyper-diverse subfamilies-Myrmicinae, Formicinae, and Dolichoderinae, and the two in Ectatomminae in Formicoid clade. As a first step to understand the phylogenic relationship of all ant species in Korea, complete mitochondrial genome of Dolichoderus sibiricus Emery, 1889 was assembled from raw data sequenced by Illumina HiSeqX. The total length of mitochondrial genome of D. sibiricus is 16,086 bp with 81.8\% A + T content. It consists of 13 PCGs, 22 tRNA, and 2 rRNA genes and an A+T–rich control region. The A+T–rich control region was 622 bp in length with 94.4\% A+T. The next step of our research, sequencing more species which not yet been studied taxa such as the Poneroid clade, will unravel detailed mitochondrial phylogeny of the family Formicidae.