Lasiohelea tianmushanaYu & Yang (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae), a New Species from Western Tianmu Mountain, Zhejiang, China

Metabarcoding reveals massive species diversity of Diptera in a subtropical ecosystem

“…Metabarcoding revealed an unexpectedly high level of dipteran species diversity in Tianmu Mountain. A total of 5,092 OTUs representing 72 families were detected based on HTS, equivalent to 54% of the dipteran families and 29% of the species recorded in China to date (Yang et al, 2020a(Yang et al, , 2020b, and exceeding the diversity previously recorded in Tianmu Mountain by 138% at the family level and 552% at the species level (Yang et al, 2016a(Yang et al, , 2016b. The findings indicate that existing dipteran species diversity surveys have been inadequate in spite of the great efforts invested in the former morphological studies (Wu & Pan, 2001;Yang et al, 2016aYang et al, , 2016b.…”

“…Here, we use metabarcoding to estimate the species diversity and distribution of Diptera in a local biodiversity hotspot, the Tianmu Mountain, located in a subtropical zone of East China at the transition of the Oriental and Palearctic regions (Holt et al, 2013;Wallace, 1958). The flora and insect fauna of this mountain range have been relatively well studied, with 924 species in 51 families of Diptera hitherto recorded (Yang et al, 2016a(Yang et al, , 2016b, out of 17,827 species in 113 families known from China (Yang et al, 2020a(Yang et al, , 2020bYang et al, 2018). Using metabarcoding based on the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) marker, we applied HTS techniques to investigate the diversity of Diptera to answer the following questions: (i) What is the total species diversity and how diverse are local communities in the Tianmu Mountain?…”