Page 1 of 44 DNA Barcodes for Bio-surveillance: Regulated and Economically Important Arthropod Plant Pests Muhammad Ashfaq* and Paul D.N. Hebert Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada * Corresponding author: Muhammad Ashfaq Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada Email:
[email protected] Phone: (519) 824-4120 Ext. 56393 Genome Downloaded from www.nrcresearchpress.com by 99.245.208.197 on 09/06/16 1 For personal use only. This Just-IN manuscript is the accepted prior to copy editing and page composition. It may differ from final official version of record. Page 2 of 44 Abstract Many of the arthropod species that are important pests of agriculture and forestry are impossible to discriminate morphologically throughout all of their life stages. Some cannot be differentiated at any life stage. Over the past decade, DNA barcoding has gained increasing adoption as a tool to both identify known species and to reveal cryptic taxa. Although there has not been a focused effort to develop a barcode library for them, reference sequences are now available for 77% of the 409 species of arthropods documented on major pest databases. Aside from developing the reference library needed to guide specimen identifications, past barcode studies have revealed that a significant fraction of arthropod pests are a complex of allied taxa. Because of their importance as pests and disease vectors impacting global agriculture and forestry, DNA barcode results on these arthropods have significant implications for quarantine detection, regulation, and management.