Barcoding the Moth of Argentina: unveiling this complex higly diverse and mostly ignored group of Lepidoptera

LAVINIA, PABLO; NUÑEZ BUSTOS, EZEQUIEL; KOPUCHIAN, CECILIA; LIJTMAER, DARÍO A.; TUBARO, PABLO L.

Congreso; Fifth International Barcode of Life Conference; 2013

Despite the fact that the All-Leps campaign represents almost half of the barcode library, until 2010 there were no projects aiming to barcode the lepidopterans of Argentina. Seeking to fill this gap in the global initiative, we have undertaken this task through a system based on three crucial aspects: national and international funding, intense field work effort and advanced training of Argentinian students at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario (BIO). I will discuss this strategy, which has allowed us to generate over 4,000 lepidopteran BOLD records in two and a half years, placing Argentina among the top 20 countries in the campaign. Particularly, a sole four-month training period at the BIO made possible the generation of COI sequences of 1,900 moth specimens, which gave significant momentum to the barcoding of the Argentinian moths. This training has been beneficial for the MACN, which now has another student qualified to work in the barcoding laboratory and in data analysis. Finally, this project represents another gain for researchers working on this group: the existence of a Lepidoptera tissue collection with associated vouchers that expands the collection already present at the Entomology Division at MACN, whose specimens constitute our next target to be barcoded.