Species authentication and taxonomic relationship assessment of Ceriagrion coromandelianum (Fabricius) (Zygoptera: Coenagrionidae) using the molecular marker Cytochrome oxidase i gene

Ceriagrion coromandelianum commonly called ‘Coromandel Marsh dart’ or ‘Yellow Waxtail’ is a widely distributed damselfly species in South Asia. It acts as a natural ‘biocontrol’ agent against paddy pests like leaf hopper, planthopper, midges and flies. The partial sequence of cytochrome oxidase I gene of C. coromandelianum was analysed by PCR and the result yielded a gene product of 573 bp length. Phylogenetic tree constructed by Maximum likelihood and Neighbour joining method supported with the bootstrap value, taxonomically confirmed the relationship of this species with other damselflies and depicted that it is closely related to C. nipponicum than other Ceriagrion members. Evolutionary divergence and tree reveals that all the Ceriagrion members are having a monophyletic ancestry originating from a common clade with maximum divergence for C. whellani followed by C. nipponicum, C. coromandelianum and C. glabrum and it occurred mainly due to the transitional change of nucleotides.