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Abstract
With millions of species and their life-stage transformations, the animal kingdom
provides a challenging target for taxonomy. Recent work has suggested that a DNA-based
identification system, founded on the mitochondrial gene, cytochrome c oxidase subunit
1 (COI), can aid the resolution of this diversity. While past work has validated the
ability of COI sequences to diagnose species in certain taxonomic groups, the present
study extends these analyses across the animal kingdom. The results indicate that
sequence divergences at COI regularly enable the discrimination of closely allied
species in all animal phyla except the Cnidaria. This success in species diagnosis
reflects both the high rates of sequence change at COI in most animal groups and constraints
on intraspecific mitochondrial DNA divergence arising, at least in part, through selective
sweeps mediated via interactions with the nuclear genome.