Mind the gap! Integrating taxonomic approaches to assess ant diversity at the southern extreme of the Atlantic Forest

Understanding patterns of species diversity relies on accurate taxonomy which can only be achieved by long-term natural history research and the use of complementary information to establish species boundaries among cryptic taxa. We used DNA barcoding to characterize the ant diversity of Iguazú Nati...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado:	2017
Materias:	Argentina DNA barcoding Formicidae Iguazú National Park species delimitation
Acceso en línea:	https://bibliotecadigital.exactas.uba.ar/collection/paper/document/paper_20457758_v7_n23_p10451_Hanisch http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_20457758_v7_n23_p10451_Hanisch
Aporte de:	Biblioteca Digital - Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (UBA) de Universidad de Buenos Aires

id	paper:paper_20457758_v7_n23_p10451_Hanisch
record_format	dspace
spelling	paper:paper_20457758_v7_n23_p10451_Hanisch2023-06-08T16:33:41Z Mind the gap! Integrating taxonomic approaches to assess ant diversity at the southern extreme of the Atlantic Forest Argentina DNA barcoding Formicidae Iguazú National Park species delimitation Understanding patterns of species diversity relies on accurate taxonomy which can only be achieved by long-term natural history research and the use of complementary information to establish species boundaries among cryptic taxa. We used DNA barcoding to characterize the ant diversity of Iguazú National Park (INP), a protected area of the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest ecoregion, located at the southernmost extent of this forest. We assessed ant diversity using both cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) sequences and traditional morphological approaches, and compared the results of these two methods. We successfully obtained COI sequences for 312 specimens belonging to 124 species, providing a DNA barcode reference library for nearly 50% of the currently known ant fauna of INP. Our results support a clear barcode gap for all but two species, with a mean intraspecific divergence of 0.72%, and an average congeneric distance of 17.25%. Congruently, the library assembled here was useful for the discrimination of the ants of INP and allowed us to link unidentified males and queens to their worker castes. To detect overlooked diversity, we classified the DNA barcodes into Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTUs) using three different clustering algorithms, and compared their number and composition to that of reference species identified based on morphology. The MOTU count was always higher than that of reference species regardless of the method, suggesting that the diversity of ants at INP could be between 6% and 10% higher than currently recognized. Lastly, our survey contributed with 78 new barcode clusters to the global DNA barcode reference library, and added 36 new records of ant species for the INP, being 23 of them new citations for Argentina. © 2017 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 2017 https://bibliotecadigital.exactas.uba.ar/collection/paper/document/paper_20457758_v7_n23_p10451_Hanisch http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_20457758_v7_n23_p10451_Hanisch
institution	Universidad de Buenos Aires
institution_str	I-28
repository_str	R-134
collection	Biblioteca Digital - Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (UBA)
topic	Argentina DNA barcoding Formicidae Iguazú National Park species delimitation
spellingShingle	Argentina DNA barcoding Formicidae Iguazú National Park species delimitation Mind the gap! Integrating taxonomic approaches to assess ant diversity at the southern extreme of the Atlantic Forest
topic_facet	Argentina DNA barcoding Formicidae Iguazú National Park species delimitation
description	Understanding patterns of species diversity relies on accurate taxonomy which can only be achieved by long-term natural history research and the use of complementary information to establish species boundaries among cryptic taxa. We used DNA barcoding to characterize the ant diversity of Iguazú National Park (INP), a protected area of the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest ecoregion, located at the southernmost extent of this forest. We assessed ant diversity using both cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) sequences and traditional morphological approaches, and compared the results of these two methods. We successfully obtained COI sequences for 312 specimens belonging to 124 species, providing a DNA barcode reference library for nearly 50% of the currently known ant fauna of INP. Our results support a clear barcode gap for all but two species, with a mean intraspecific divergence of 0.72%, and an average congeneric distance of 17.25%. Congruently, the library assembled here was useful for the discrimination of the ants of INP and allowed us to link unidentified males and queens to their worker castes. To detect overlooked diversity, we classified the DNA barcodes into Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTUs) using three different clustering algorithms, and compared their number and composition to that of reference species identified based on morphology. The MOTU count was always higher than that of reference species regardless of the method, suggesting that the diversity of ants at INP could be between 6% and 10% higher than currently recognized. Lastly, our survey contributed with 78 new barcode clusters to the global DNA barcode reference library, and added 36 new records of ant species for the INP, being 23 of them new citations for Argentina. © 2017 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
title	Mind the gap! Integrating taxonomic approaches to assess ant diversity at the southern extreme of the Atlantic Forest
title_short	Mind the gap! Integrating taxonomic approaches to assess ant diversity at the southern extreme of the Atlantic Forest
title_full	Mind the gap! Integrating taxonomic approaches to assess ant diversity at the southern extreme of the Atlantic Forest
title_fullStr	Mind the gap! Integrating taxonomic approaches to assess ant diversity at the southern extreme of the Atlantic Forest
title_full_unstemmed	Mind the gap! Integrating taxonomic approaches to assess ant diversity at the southern extreme of the Atlantic Forest
title_sort	mind the gap! integrating taxonomic approaches to assess ant diversity at the southern extreme of the atlantic forest
publishDate	2017
url	https://bibliotecadigital.exactas.uba.ar/collection/paper/document/paper_20457758_v7_n23_p10451_Hanisch http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_20457758_v7_n23_p10451_Hanisch
_version_	1768546275144237056

Mind the gap! Integrating taxonomic approaches to assess ant diversity at the southern extreme of the Atlantic Forest

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