High-throughput biodiversity analysis: Rapid assessment of species richness and ecological interactions of Chrysomelidae (Coleoptera) in the tropics

Abstract

Biodiversity assessment has been the focus of intense debate and conceptual and methodological advances in recent years. The cultural, academic and aesthetic impulses to recognise and catalogue the diversity in our surroundings, in this case of living objects, is furthermore propelled by the urgency of understanding that we may be responsible for a dramatic reduction of biodiversity, comparable in magnitude to geological mass extinctions. One of the most important advances in this attempt to characterise biodiversity has been incorporating DNA-based characters and molecular taxonomy tools to achieve faster and more efficient species delimitation and identification, even in hyperdiverse tropical biomes. In this assay we advocate for a broad understanding of Biodiversity as the inventory of species in a given environment, but also the diversity of their interactions, with both aspects being attainable using molecular markers and phylogenetic approaches. We exemplify the suitability and utility of this framework for large-scale biodiversity assessment with the results of our ongoing projects trying to characterise the communities of leaf beetles and their host plants in several tropical setups. Moreover, we propose that approaches similar to ours, establishing the inventories of two ecologically inter-related and species-rich groups of organisms, such as insect herbivores and their angiosperm host-plants, can serve as the foundational stone to anchor a comprehensive assessment of diversity, also in tropical environments, by subsequent addition of trophic levels.

Shotgun mitogenomics across body size classes in a local assemblage of tropical Diptera: Phylogeny, species diversity and mitochondrial abundance spectrum

“…The difficulties of species identification and phylogenetic characterization in many groups of small‐bodied animals limit the analysis of biodiversity and macroecological patterns (Basset et al., ; Cardoso, Pekar, Jocque, & Coddington, ; Costello, May, & Stork, ; Gomez‐Zurita et al., ; Hebert et al., ). Tests of general theories of biodiversity therefore have mainly been conducted for a few well‐known groups of macro‐organisms, such as tropical rainforest trees (Harte, Smith, & Storch, ; Hubbell, ; Jabot & Chave, ; ter Steege et al., ).…”

Peer Review #1 of "Investigating leaf beetles (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae) on the west coast islands of Sabah via checklist-taking and DNA barcoding (v0.1)"

“…The above mentioned recent taxonomic works are based on morphological characteristics (Mohamedsaid, 2006a;Moseyko, 2012;Medvedev & Romantsov, 2017b) and few studies have utilised the molecular approaches to infer the phylogeny of leaf beetles (Kishimoto-Yamada et al, 2013;Crampton-Platt et al, 2015). Using this conventional taxonomic approach alone is challenging because sexual dimorphism and colour pattern variants or phenotypic polymorphism are common, especially variables within the subfamily Galerucinae (Crownson, 1981;Chaboo, 2007;Prado, 2013;Gómez-Zurita et al, 2016). Consequently, DNA barcoding has been added to the taxonomist's toolkit in order to complement the species identifications that are based on morphological characters (Hebert et al, 2003;Pentinsaari, Hebert & Mutanen, 2014;Gómez-Zurita et al, 2016).…”

“…Using this conventional taxonomic approach alone is challenging because sexual dimorphism and colour pattern variants or phenotypic polymorphism are common, especially variables within the subfamily Galerucinae (Crownson, 1981;Chaboo, 2007;Prado, 2013;Gómez-Zurita et al, 2016). Consequently, DNA barcoding has been added to the taxonomist's toolkit in order to complement the species identifications that are based on morphological characters (Hebert et al, 2003;Pentinsaari, Hebert & Mutanen, 2014;Gómez-Zurita et al, 2016). To date, there are 73 records of leaf beetles with 15 Barcode Index Numbers (BINs) from Malaysia registered in the Barcoding of Life Data system (BOLD), but none of these records are from Sabah or Borneo.…”

Investigating leaf beetles (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae) on the west coast islands of Sabah via checklist-taking and DNA barcoding

“…The above mentioned recent taxonomic works are based on morphological characteristics ( Mohamedsaid, 2006a ; Moseyko, 2012 ; Medvedev & Romantsov, 2017b ) and few studies have utilized the molecular approaches to infer the phylogeny of leaf beetles ( Kishimoto-Yamada et al, 2013 ; Crampton-Platt et al, 2015 ). Using this conventional taxonomic approach alone is challenging because sexual dimorphism and colour pattern variants or phenotypic polymorphism are common, especially variables within the subfamily Galerucinae ( Crowson, 1981 ; Chaboo, 2007 ; Prado, 2013 ; Gómez-Zurita et al, 2016 ). Consequently, DNA barcoding has been added to the taxonomist’s toolkit in order to complement the species identifications that are based on morphological characters ( Hebert et al, 2003 ; Pentinsaari, Hebert & Mutanen, 2014 ; Gómez-Zurita et al, 2016 ).…”