Original title: ASAP: assemble species by automatic partitioning
ASAP takes DNA barcode sequences from one gene and measures how different each pair is. It groups sequences with similar differences, then ranks several possible ways to divide them into species. It does not need to build an evolutionary tree or be told in advance how much variation a species usually has. The result is a set of proposed groupings for taxonomists to examine.
Imagine sorting a pile of family photos by how much the faces resemble one another. The hard part is choosing where one family group ends and another begins, especially when some faces are quite different within the same family. In this paper, the photos are DNA sequences, their resemblance is measured by sequence differences, and the possible family groupings are proposed species partitions.
Taxonomists often need to decide which DNA samples may belong to different species. ASAP offers a quick way to explore candidate groupings, giving them a starting point for further taxonomic work—not a final species verdict.
The abstract describes proposed species partitions as a first step in integrative taxonomy, not definitive species identifications. Its assessment covers ten real COI barcode data sets and Monte Carlo simulations; the abstract does not establish performance for every organism, gene, or data set.
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ASAP: assemble species by automatic partitioning — Nicolas Puillandre, Sophie Brouillet, Guillaume Achaz — Molecular Ecology Resources — doi:10.1111/1755-0998.13281
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.