Diversity and composition of Arctiinae moth assemblages along elevational and spatial dimensions in Brazilian Atlantic Forest

Zenker, Maurício M.; DeVries, Philip J.; Penz, Carla M.; Teston, José Augusto; Freitas, André Victor Lucci; Pie, Márcio R.

doi:10.1007/s10841-015-9753-x

Cited by 21 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…This further emphasizes how rich and diverse neotropical regions are and the need to conduct biodiversity studies in such habitats. Conversely, the significant difference between communities of different biomes agrees with what would be expected from neotropical insects samples obtained with automatic light traps and sorted with a morphospecies approach (Zenker et al, 2015). Furthermore, the higher number of Lepidoptera OTUs identified at ≥97% similarity level, compared with that of other insect orders, is similar to what would be expected from automatic light traps, as previously found for moths in Brazil (Specht, Teston, Mare, & Corseuil, 2005;Zenker et al, 2015).…”

Section: Alpha and Beta Diversity In Neotropical Biomessupporting

confidence: 85%

Assessing insect biodiversity with automatic light traps in Brazil: Pearls and pitfalls of metabarcoding samples in preservative ethanol

Zenker

Specht

Fonseca

2020

Ecology and Evolution

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Automated species identification based on data produced with metabarcoding offers an alternative for assessing biodiversity of bulk insect samples obtained with traps. We used a standard two‐step PCR approach to amplify a 313 bp fragment of the barcoding region of the mitochondrial COI gene. The PCR products were sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq platform, and the OTUs production and taxonomic identifications were performed with a customized pipeline and database. The DNA used in the PCR procedures was extracted directly from the preservative ethanol of bulk insect samples obtained with automatic light traps in 12 sampling areas located in different biomes of Brazil, during wet and dry seasons. Agricultural field and forest edge habitats were collected for all sampling areas. A total of 119 insect OTUs and nine additional OTUs assigned to other arthropod taxa were obtained at a ≥97% sequence similarity level. The alpha and beta diversity analyses comparing biomes, habitats, and seasons were mostly inconclusive, except for a significant difference in beta diversity between biomes. In this study, we were able to metabarcode and HTS adult insects from their preservative medium. Notwithstanding, our results underrepresent the true magnitude of insect diversity expected from samples obtained with automatic light traps in Brazil. Although biological and technical factors might have impacted our results, measures to optimize and standardize eDNA HTS should be in place to improve taxonomic coverage of samples of unknown diversity and stored in suboptimal conditions, which is the case of most eDNA samples.

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Section: Alpha and Beta Diversity In Neotropical Biomessupporting

confidence: 85%

Assessing insect biodiversity with automatic light traps in Brazil: Pearls and pitfalls of metabarcoding samples in preservative ethanol

Zenker

Specht

Fonseca

2020

Ecology and Evolution

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“…Yet, the complete bombycoid complex has not been addressed in earlier diversity studies in Costa Rica, so it is not possible to compare results on this moth taxon with other studies. Overall, the study area around La Gamba can be considered as a moderately species‐rich Neotropical area, in comparison with much higher regional and local moth richness observed in the biodiversity hot spot of the Ecuadorian Andes (Brehm, Pitkin, Hilt & Fiedler, ; Brehm et al., ; Hilt & Fiedler, ) and some areas in Brazil (Hawes et al., ; Zenker et al., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Moth assemblages in Costa Rica rain forest mirror small‐scale topographic heterogeneity

et al. 2019

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In many tropical lowland rain forests, topographic variation increases environmental heterogeneity, thus contributing to the extraordinary biodiversity of tropical lowland forests. While a growing number of studies have addressed effects of topographic differences on tropical insect communities at regional scales (e.g., along extensive elevational gradients), surprisingly little is known about topographic effects at smaller spatial scales. The present study investigates moth assemblages in a topographically heterogeneous lowland rain forest landscape, at distances of less than a few hundred meters, in the Golfo Dulce region (SW Costa Rica). Three moth lineages—Erebidae–Arctiinae (tiger and lichen moths), the bombycoid complex, and Geometridae (inchworm moths)—were examined by means of automatic light traps in three different forest types: creek forest, slope forest, and ridge forest. Altogether, 6,543 individuals of 419 species were observed. Moth assemblages differed significantly between the three forest types regarding species richness, total abundance, and species composition. Moth richness and abundance increased more than fourfold and eightfold from creek over slope to ridge forest sites. All three taxonomic units showed identical biodiversity patterns, notwithstanding their strong differences in multiple eco‐morphological traits. An indicator species analysis revealed that most species identified as characteristic were associated either with the ridge forest alone or with ridge plus slope forests, but very few with the creek forest. Despite their mobility, local moth assemblages are highly differentially filtered from the same regional species pool. Hence, variation in environmental factors significantly affects assemblages of tropical moth species at small spatial scales. Abstract in Spanish is available with online material.

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“…The collaboration between different research groups from institutions in Brazil, Europe and North America has produced valuable information on biodiversity patterns (Zenker et al . ) and taxonomy (Zenker et al . ) of arctiines in the highly threatened Brazilian Atlantic Forest.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hilt & Fiedler , ; Zenker et al . ), particularly in the Neotropical region which is regarded as the most species rich of all regions (Brehm ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Systematics and origin of moths in the subfamily Arctiinae (Lepidoptera, Erebidae) in the Neotropical region

et al. 2016

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The availability of standard protocols to obtain DNA sequences has allowed the inference of phylogenetic Hypotheses for many taxa, including moths. We here have inferred a phylogeny using maximum‐Likelihood and Bayesian approaches for a species‐rich group of moths (Erebidae, Arctiinae), with strong emphasis on Neotropical genera collected in different field campaigns in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, eastern Amazon and southern Ecuador. A total of 277 species belonging to 246 genera were included in the analysis. Our main objectives were to shed light on the relationships between suprageneric groups, especially subtribes, and hypothesize colonization events in and out of the Neotropics. The monophyly of Arctiinae and its four tribes (Lithosiini, Amerilini, Syntomini and Arctiini) was recovered in the ML and Bayesian trees. Three Lithosiini subtribes previously found and two additional species groups were recovered monophyletic in both phylogenetic estimation methods. In Arctiini, the monophyly of Spilosomina and Arctiina was highly supported in the ML and Bayesian trees, but the monophyly of Ctenuchina and Echromiina was weakly supported in the ML tree and absent in the Bayesian tree; the remaining subtribes were paraphyletic and, in the case of Phageopterina, formed several species groups. The mapping of species occurrence in our ML tree suggests that Arctiinae have an Old World origin and that the Neotropical region was colonized at least six times independently. Our analysis also suggests that a number of species that occur in Neotropical and other zoogeographic regions may have originated in the Neotropics, although further taxon sampling is required to support this hypothesis. To our knowledge, this is the first time that a highly speciose group of tropical moths is well covered in a phylogeny, and it seems plausible that the results reported here may be extendable to other species‐rich tropical undersampled moth taxa.

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Diversity and composition of Arctiinae moth assemblages along elevational and spatial dimensions in Brazilian Atlantic Forest

Cited by 21 publications

References 42 publications

Assessing insect biodiversity with automatic light traps in Brazil: Pearls and pitfalls of metabarcoding samples in preservative ethanol

Assessing insect biodiversity with automatic light traps in Brazil: Pearls and pitfalls of metabarcoding samples in preservative ethanol

Moth assemblages in Costa Rica rain forest mirror small‐scale topographic heterogeneity

Systematics and origin of moths in the subfamily Arctiinae (Lepidoptera, Erebidae) in the Neotropical region

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