DNA BARCODING DNA barcodes of Philippine accipitrids PERRY S. ONG,* ADRIAN U. LUCZON,* JONAS P. QUILANG,* ANNA MAE T. SUMAYA,† JAYSON C. IBAN ˜ EZ,†‡DENNIS J. SALVADOR†andIAN KENDRICH C. FONTANILLA* *DNA Barcoding Laboratory, Institute of Biology, University of the Philippines, Diliman 1101, Quezon City, Philippines, †Philippine Eagle Foundation, Malagos, Baguio District 8000, Davao City, Philippines, ‡School of Environmental Research, Charles Darwin University, Darwin NT 0909 Australia Abstract DNA barcoding is a molecular method that rapidly identifies an individual to a known taxon or its closest relative based on a 650-bp fragment of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI). In this study, DNA barcodes of members of the family Accipitridae, including Haliastur indus (brahminy kite), Haliaeetus leucogaster (white-bellied sea eagle), Ichthyophaga ichthyaetus (grey-headed fish eagle), Spilornis holospilus (crested serpent-eagle), Spizaetus philippensis (Philippine hawk- eagle), and Pithecophaga jefferyi (Philippine eagle), are reported for the first time. All individuals sampled are kept at the Philippine Eagle Center in Davao City, Philippines. Basic local alignment search tool results demonstrated that the COI sequences for these species were unique. The COI gene trees constructed using the maximum-likelihood and neighbour- joining (NJ) methods supported the monophyly of the booted eagles of the Aquilinae and the sea eagles of the Haliaeeti- nae but not the kites of the Milvinae. Keywords: Accipitridae, All Birds Barcoding Initiative, cytochrome oxidase subunit I, DNA Barcoding, molecular phylogeny Received 15 July 2010; revision received 9 September 2010; accepted 10 September 2010 Introduction Of the 552 species of birds recorded in the Philippines, 386 are known to breed in the archipelago. The remaining 166 are winter residents, passage migrants, or vagrants (Peterson et al. 2000). Of the breeding spe- cies, 169 are endemic to the country (Peterson et al. 2000). However, it is estimated that the number of endemics could be as much as 50% higher (Lohman et al. 2010). Owing to this potentially high level of endemism and the rapid rate of destruction of natural habitats, the Philippines has been identified as a top global priority for conservation action (Peterson et al. 2000; Mittermeier et al. 2003). Taxonomy is vital in establishing conservation priori- ties in the Philippines (Peterson 2006). For birds, descrip- tion and subsequent identification of new species use far more restrictive criteria compared to other vertebrates, which may lead to a large number of evolutionarily dis- tinct bird taxa not being recognized as distinct taxonomic units (Watson 2005). One major emerging area of bioin- formatics is the establishment of a database of unique DNA sequences (barcodes) that can be used to rapidly and accurately identify all living things. A 650-bp region at the 5¢ end of the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) in the mitochondrial genome was proposed by Hebert et al. (2004) to be the standard gene for barcoding animals. DNA barcoding is found to be significant for taxonomic and biodiversity research (Hajibabaei et al. 2007). DNA barcoding can assign unknown individuals to species as well as facilitate the discovery of new species (Moritz & Cicero 2004). The Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL, http://barcoding.si.edu/) has a flagship project called the All Birds Barcoding Initiative or ABBI, (http:// www.barcodingbirds.org/), which is aiming at develop- ing DNA barcoding in birds with at least five individuals barcoded for every species (http://www.barcoding- birds.org/pa/ge/vision). Currently, there are 9933 bird species recognized in ABBI. Of these, about 32% have already been barcoded. Databases from ABBI are housed at the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BoLD Systems, http://www.boldsystems.org/). In 2005, ABBI identified the Indomalayan region as the top priority for barcoding birds because of the region’s high rate of endemism and endangerment and also because of poor research efforts in this area (Sodhi et al. 2007). Correspondence: Adrian U. Luczon, Fax: 9205471; E-mail: aul_me_sci@yahoo.com, auluczon@upd.edu.ph Ó 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Molecular Ecology Resources (2011) 11, 245–254 doi: 10.1111/j.1755-0998.2010.02928.x