Molecular identification of 17 invasive plant species based on ITS2 sequences

A wide variety of invasive plants have caused ecological and economic problems in China. We explored the efficiency of molecular identification for the 17 popular aggressive invasive plant species and their relative species using ITS2 DNA regions. The results showed that ITS2 sequences possessed low intra-specific divergences and considerable inter-specific variations. ITS2 sequences could identify 95.5% of 300 invasive plant and related species samples correctly at the species levels. The constructed NJ tree displayed that different invasive plant species separated well and the same invasive species clustered together. The secondary structures of ITS2 sequences are also important for the systematic and taxonomic study. Molecular identification based on ITS2 sequences might be a useful tool for the identification of invasive species.