Flying insects in the southern Atlantic Forest: striking biodiversity and diverse temporal demographic patterns

BUKOWSKI, BELÉN; RATNASINGHEM, SUJEEVAN; LIJTMAER, DARÍO A.; HANISCH, PRISCILA E.; DEWAARD, JEREMY R.; PEREZ, KATE; HEBERT, PAUL D. N.; TUBARO, PABLO L.

Congreso; 7th International Barcode of Life Conference; 2017

The African Centre for DNA Barcoding (ACDB) y University of Johannesburg (UJ)

Background: The Atlantic Forest in South America is one of the mostbiodiverse ecosystems on Earth, harboring around 7% of the species ofour planet. Because this biodiversity hotspot possesses high rates ofendemism and has been extremely disturbed, it is a priority for conservationefforts. Arthropods are good indicators of biodiversity andecosystem integrity of forests. Therefore, a comprehensive assessmentof their species composition through time and space is crucialfor biomonitoring. DNA barcoding can support this activity. In thecontext of the Global Malaise Program, Argentina deployed a Malaisetrap in Misiones province, in the southern Atlantic Forest, and insectswere collected weekly for a year starting in February 2013 to evaluatelocal diversity and patterns of temporal succession. Results: Overall,75 589 specimens were collected (67 565 barcode sequences recovered).These represented 8753 Barcode Index Numbers (BINs) (proxyfor species), of which 81% had not been previously barcoded. Dipterawas the most abundant order (76%), followed by Hemiptera (7%)and Lepidoptera (5%). We assessed the temporal distribution of the38 most abundant BINs, which constitute conspicuous components ofthis ecosystem and identified six clusters of BINs with similar timeseries distributions. Each of these clusters included representativesfrom different orders, showing that demographic patterns throughtime are not order specific. We also analyzed which environmentalvariables (temperature, precipitation, wind speed) can best explainthe abundance distribution of each BIN. Significance: Thousands ofnew species were added to the DNA barcode library. In addition, wedramatically increased access to biodiversity information for this region(currently the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)only includes 321 species of insects in the area). Based on these results,the possible role of these BINs as biological indicators for this ecosystemcan be further investigated, supporting both biomonitoring andthe assessment of changes in community structure due to ongoingclimate change and environmental disturbance.