DNA barcodes reveal striking arthropod diversity and unveil seasonal patterns of variation in the southern Atlantic Forest

Abstract

The Atlantic Forest harbors 7% of global biodiversity and possesses high levels of endemism, but many of its component taxa remain unstudied. Due to the importance of tropical forests and the urgency to protect them, there is a compelling need to address this knowledge gap. To provide more information on its arthropod fauna, a Malaise trap was deployed for 12 months in a semi-degraded area of the southern Upper Paraná ecoregion of the Atlantic Forest. All specimens were DNA barcoded and the Barcode Index Number (BIN) system was employed to assign each specimen to a species proxy. DNA barcodes were obtained from 75,500 arthropods that included representatives of 8,651 BINs. Nearly 81% of these BINs were first records, highlighting the high rates of endemism and lack of study of arthropods from the Atlantic Forest. Diptera was the most abundant order, followed by Hemiptera, Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera. Diptera was also the most species-rich order, followed by Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, and Coleoptera, a result consistent with studies in other biogeographic regions. Insects were most abundant in winter and most diverse in autumn and winter. This pattern, however, was caused mainly by the dynamics of dipteran diversity as other orders differed in their seasonal variation. The BIN composition of the insect community varied sharply through the year and also differed between the two consecutive summers included in the sampling period. The study of the 38 commonest BINs showed that seasonal patterns of abundance were not order-specific. Temperature had the strongest impact on seasonal abundance variation. Our results highlight the striking and understudied arthropod diversity of the highly fragmented Atlantic Forest, the predominance of dipterans, and the fact that abundance and richness in this insect community peak in the coolest months. Standardized studies like this generate fast and reliable biodiversity inventories and unveil ecological patterns, thus providing valuable information for conservation programs.

Different Perspectives on the Phylogeny of Mordellidae (Coleoptera) Provided by Two Regions of the mtDNA COI Gene

“…This can also be observed in saturation analysis (Figs 5,6), where Jerry-Pat saturates faster and at a lower interspecific divergence than Folmer's, making Jerry-Pat fragment better for intraspecific analysis or closely related species and Folmer's for interspecific analyses. Consequently, Jerry-Pat fragment seems to be able to identify unknown specimens reliably and could be a good potential DNA barcode, discriminating species in a rapid way and enabling the assessment of species composition in diverse ecosystems as it has been previously done in metapopulation studies with the DNA barcode (Folmer's fragment) (Bukowski et al 2022). This approach agrees with previous works where other regions of the COI have demonstrated to do a better performance than the standard DNA barcode (Aly 2014, Kvie et al 2016, Lakatos et al 2022.…”

“…Consequently, Jerry-Pat fragment seems to be able to identify unknown specimens reliably and could be a good potential DNA barcode, discriminating species in a rapid way and enabling the assessment of species composition in diverse ecosystems as it has been previously done in metapopulation studies with the DNA barcode (Folmer's fragment) (Bukowski et al 2022). This approach agrees with previous works where other regions of the COI have demonstrated to do a better performance than the standard DNA barcode (Aly 2014, Kvie et al 2016, Lakatos et al 2022).…”

DNA Barcoding for Species Identification of Moss-Dwelling Invertebrates: Performance of Nanopore Sequencing and Coverage in Reference Database

“…To prepare the samples for nanopore sequencing, we used the PCR primers LCO1490 and HCO2198 [38]. This primer pair is considered the standard barcoding primer pair for many animal taxa with high amplification success in invertebrates [39][40][41][42][43]. The primers for each individual sample were tagged with index sequences on both the forward and reverse primer (in our case a selection of the tags from [44]; Table S1).…”

Description of a New <i>Cruranthura</i> Species from the Miyako Islands, Japan, with Its DNA Barcode (Isopoda: Anthuroidea: Paranthuridae)

“…In BLAST searches (Altschul et al 1990), the COI sequence most similar to the holotype COI sequence was from the insect "Cecidomyiidae sp. " (INSD accession number OM561009; identity score 80.66%, query cover 99%; Bukowski et al 2022) rather than from a paranthurid, though there are several paranthurid COI sequences in the database. In a BLAST search with the "Organism" option set to "Anthuridea", the sequence most similar to ours was from Colanthura pigmentata Kensley, 1980 (KR095339; identity score 81.03%, query cover 88%; Song and Min 2015).…”