Barcoding the ants of Iguazú National Park, a biodiversity hotspot in northeastern Argentina

HANISCH PRISCILA E.; LAVINIA OBLANCA PABLO DAMIÁN; TUBARO PABLO LUIS; SUAREZ ANDREW V.; PARIS CAROLINA I.

Guelph

Congreso; 6th International Barcode of Life Conference; 2015

Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, University of Guelph

Background: Ants are a key component of terrestrial ecosystems becausethey provide several ecological services such as seed dispersal, organicmatter decomposition, and soil nutrient cycling. Here, we assess, through the generation and analysis of DNA barcodes, the diversity ofants of Iguazú National Park (INP) as part of a major project that aims tobarcode the ants of Argentina. The INP constitutes a biodiversity hotspotlocated in northeastern Argentina with over 200 species of ants andrepresents one of the biggest remnants of the Atlantic Forest, which is apriority for conservation as it harbors 7% of world´s diversity. Results:Weobtained 178 COI sequences from 332 individuals belonging to more than100 species from over 30 genera. Unidentified species were not included.The mean intraspecific sequence divergence was slightly over0.70%, which was 23 times lower than the mean interspecific divergence(16.6%). After removing a few species with strikingly deep intraspecificdivergence, the mean intraspecific divergence fell to 0.30%.There were more BINs (73) than species (67), with no BIN being sharedby different species. Seven species showed two clearly differentiatedbarcode clusters, suggesting the possible presence of cryptic biodiversityat INP. The existence of these divergent intraspecific lineages wassupported by high node support values in complementary phylogeneticanalyses. Significance: Taxonomic keys for Neotropical ants aremostly incomplete and based almost exclusively on workers, precludingthe identification of males and queens of most species. Increasingthe reference barcode library for the ants of INP (and Argentina) willcertainly help to identify these castes and to register morphologicalvariability of Neotropical ants, which may eventually lead to the generationof new taxonomic keys. Lastly, our results support the biodiversityhotspot status of the Atlantic Forest and suggest that antdiversity in INP is currently being underestimated.