The diversity of terrestrial arthropods in Canada

Langor, David W.

doi:10.3897/zookeys.819.31947

Cited by 43 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 77 publications

(69 reference statements)

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“…Thus, the Canadian fauna is supposedly much richer in Diptera than in Hymenoptera, in contrast to the inferred Swedish fauna. It is possible that the faunas are indeed different, but we consider it more likely that the Canadian results are misleading because of the low coverage of many critical Hymenoptera taxa and the low success in barcoding hymenopterans (see also [49]). It is true that the Canadian study is based on a larger sample than our study (1,000,000 versus 165,000 specimens).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Completing Linnaeus’s inventory of the Swedish insect fauna: Only 5,000 species left?

et al. 2020

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Despite more than 250 years of taxonomic research, we still have only a vague idea about the true size and composition of the faunas and floras of the planet. Many biodiversity inventories provide limited insight because they focus on a small taxonomic subsample or a tiny geographic area. Here, we report on the size and composition of the Swedish insect fauna, thought to represent roughly half of the diversity of multicellular life in one of the largest European countries. Our results are based on more than a decade of data from the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative and its massive inventory of the country's insect fauna, the Swedish Malaise Trap Project The fauna is considered one of the best known in the world, but the initiative has nevertheless revealed a surprising amount of hidden diversity: more than 3,000 new species (301 new to science) have been documented so far. Here, we use three independent methods to analyze the true size and composition of the fauna at the family or subfamily level: (1) assessments by experts who have been working on the most poorly known groups in the fauna; (2) estimates based on the proportion of new species discovered in the Malaise trap inventory; and (3) extrapolations based on species abundance and incidence data from the inventory. For the last method, we develop a new estimator, the combined non-parametric estimator, which we show is less sensitive to poor coverage of the species pool than other popular estimators. The three methods converge on similar estimates of the size and composition of the fauna, suggesting that it comprises around 33,000 species. Of

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Completing Linnaeus’s inventory of the Swedish insect fauna: Only 5,000 species left?

et al. 2020

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“…Despite incomplete sampling, the present analysis indicates that the Canadian fauna almost certainly comprises more than 30,000 species. Although further sampling will refine this projection (Coddington, Agnarsson, Miller, Kuntner, & Hormiga, 2009), mites clearly represent a substantial portion of the Canadian arthropod fauna, rivalling species richness estimates for the most diverse insect orders-Diptera and Hymenoptera (Hebert et al, 2016;Langor, 2019).…”

Section: Richness Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

DNA barcodes expose unexpected diversity in Canadian mites

2019

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Mites (Arachnida: Acariformes, Parasitiformes) are the most abundant and species‐rich group of arthropods in soil, but are also diverse in freshwater habitats, on plants, and as symbionts of larger animals. However, assessment of their diversity has been impeded by their small size and often cryptic morphology. As a consequence, published estimates of their species richness span more than two orders of magnitude (0.4–114 million). In this study we employ DNA barcoding and the Barcode Index Number (BIN) system to investigate mite diversity at over 1,800 sites across Canada, primarily from soil and litter habitats with smaller contributions from freshwater, plants, and animal hosts. Barcodes from 73,394 specimens revealed 7,077 BINs with representatives from all four orders (Ixodida, Mesostigmata, Sarcoptiformes, Trombidiformes) and 60% (186) of the known families. The BIN total is 2.4 times the number of species previously recorded from Canada (2,999), reflecting the unexpectedly high richness of several families. Richness projections suggest that more than 28,000 BINs occur at the sampled locations, indicating that the Canadian mite fauna almost certainly includes more than 30,000 species—a total similar to that for the most diverse insect order in Canada, Diptera. This unexpected diversity was partitioned into highly dissimilar, spatially‐structured assemblages that likely reflect dispersal limitation and environmental heterogeneity. Further sampling of a greater diversity of habitats will refine understanding of mite diversity in Canada, but similar analyses in other geographic regions will be essential to ascertain their diversity at a global scale.

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“…The last thorough compilation for all invertebrates [58,59] indicated only 41,941 Canadian species and an estimated fauna of 78,821 species. Similarly, the more recent compilation of all terrestrial invertebrates by Langor [60] assembled 44,100 described species with 27,000-42,600 remaining undiscovered and/or undescribed. Flies (Diptera) dominate both specimens (N=875,215; 58.3%) and BINs (N=27,525; 42.8%) in the current reference library, followed by bees, wasps, ants and allies (Hymenoptera) and moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera) ( Table 1).…”

Section: Records Summarymentioning

confidence: 99%

A reference library for the identification of Canadian invertebrates: 1.5 million DNA barcodes, voucher specimens, and genomic samples

deWaard

Ratnasingham²,

Zakharov³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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The reliable taxonomic identification of organisms through DNA sequence data requires a well parameterized library of curated reference sequences. However, it is estimated that just 15% of described animal species are represented in public sequence repositories. To begin to address this deficiency, we provide DNA barcodes for 1,500,003 animal specimens collected from 23 terrestrial and aquatic ecozones at sites across Canada, a nation that comprises 7% of the planet's land surface. In total, 14 phyla, 43 classes, 163 orders, 1123 families, 6186 genera, and 64,264 Barcode Index Numbers (BINs; a proxy for species) are represented. Species-level taxonomy was available for 38% of the specimens, but higher proportions were assigned to a genus (69.5%) and a family (99.9%).

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The diversity of terrestrial arthropods in Canada

Cited by 43 publications

References 77 publications

Completing Linnaeus’s inventory of the Swedish insect fauna: Only 5,000 species left?

Completing Linnaeus’s inventory of the Swedish insect fauna: Only 5,000 species left?

DNA barcodes expose unexpected diversity in Canadian mites

A reference library for the identification of Canadian invertebrates: 1.5 million DNA barcodes, voucher specimens, and genomic samples

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