DNA Barcodes and Morphology Recover an Undescribed Species of Omalus in North America
Omalus aeneus is a species of cuckoo wasp thought to be introduced into North America. Previous work based on DNA barcoding suggested this species represents a species complex comprised of multiple cryptic species. Specimens collected from Minnesota support this idea, with two distinct collected morphotypes. These two groups additionally differ based on CO1 mitochondrial DNA barcodes. The goal of our research was to determine the identity of specimens from morphotype 2, a group that differs from both Omalus aeneus and also other Omalus species native to North America. To do this we retrieved all CO1 DNA barcode data for the genus Omalus from the BOLD Systems database. We then extracted and sequenced a 658 bp region of CO1 from morphotype 2 specimens from across Minnesota. This combined dataset was analyzed using a maximum likelihood analysis. The resulting tree was used to examine the relationships between morphotype 2 specimens in Minnesota with specimens of other Omalus species collected from across North America.