Linkage between insects, Coral Reefs

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posted on 13 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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MALAPPURAM: If validated, this pathbreaking study through DNA bar coding of coral reefs could well prove some kind of linkage betw..

MALAPPURAM: If validated, this pathbreaking study through DNA bar coding of coral reefs could well prove some kind of linkage between the evolutionary history of soft corals and that of insects.
Because that is what a research team from the Department of Zoology, University of Calicut, has claimed to have found from a DNA sequence of corals, which they have published a few days back in Genbank, the open database of the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), USA. The research team, led by Dr K V Lazar, head of the Zoology department, in its effort to genetically map coral reefs in the country for the first time, has identified four new species of soft coral reefs near Lakshadweep islands which are more close to insects than hard corals.

The new species of corals were located in the Arabian Sea at a depth of about 2030 metres near Agatti islands.

The team has determined the structure of a specific gene called COII (Cytochrome Oxidase Subunit II) found in the mitochondria (a particle in the cells) of these reefs and has tentatively named the species as Sarcophyton sp. LKS7, Sarcophyton sp. LK2010a isolate S8, Sarcophyton sp. LK2010a isolate S20 and Sarcophyton glaucum isolate S25.

The team has spotted two more new species of corals during their study, and their DNA bar coding is being done", Lazar said.

A similar project to determine the DNA sequencing in Indian honeybees is also under way at the department.