Molecular identification of ticks

Data was obtained from a study aimed at identifying selected tick species at different life stages in South Africa. Morphology results were confirmed using molecular techniques (DNA barcoding) targeting the 16S rRNA and COI genes.

Table 1 shows sequence results obtained from the study compared with closely related reference sequences downloaded from GeneBank. Figures 1 and 2 show phylogenetic trees derived from both genes using both the maximum-likelihood and Neighbour-Joining methods.