Approximately 1460 species of spiders have been reported from Canada, 3% of the global fauna. This study provides a DNA barcode reference library for 1018 of these species based upon the analysis of ...more than 30 000 specimens. The sequence results show a clear barcode gap in most cases with a mean intraspecific divergence of 0.78% vs. a minimum nearest‐neighbour (NN) distance averaging 7.85%. The sequences were assigned to 1359 Barcode index numbers (BINs) with 1344 of these BINs composed of specimens belonging to a single currently recognized species. There was a perfect correspondence between BIN membership and a known species in 795 cases, while another 197 species were assigned to two or more BINs (556 in total). A few other species (26) were involved in BIN merges or in a combination of merges and splits. There was only a weak relationship between the number of specimens analysed for a species and its BIN count. However, three species were clear outliers with their specimens being placed in 11–22 BINs. Although all BIN splits need further study to clarify the taxonomic status of the entities involved, DNA barcodes discriminated 98% of the 1018 species. The present survey conservatively revealed 16 species new to science, 52 species new to Canada and major range extensions for 426 species. However, if most BIN splits detected in this study reflect cryptic taxa, the true species count for Canadian spiders could be 30–50% higher than currently recognized.
The apoid wasps have traditionally been regarded as a paraphyletic assemblage of four families (Ampulicidae, Crabronidae, Heterogynaidae and Sphecidae) that are closely related to the bees ...(Anthophila). The present study covers the three families of apoid wasps known to occur in Europe, that is, the Ampulicidae, Crabronidae and Sphecidae. DNA barcode sequences of 3,695 specimens of apoid wasps were analysed for the present study, including 21 specimens of Ampulicidae, 3,398 Crabronidae and 276 Sphecidae. The sequences of the dataset represent 661 species of apoid wasps, including two species of Ampulicidae, 613 of Crabronidae and 46 species of Sphecidae. The dataset includes DNA barcodes of 240 species of German apoid wasps, representing 88% of the German fauna, and 578 European species, representing 65% of the European apoid wasp fauna. The study demonstrates that virtually all species of the three examined families can be reliably identified by DNA barcodes. The implications of highly congruent results between traditional taxonomy and DNA barcoding for the reliable application of DNA‐based identifications are discussed.
Morphological study of 1,795 spiders from sites across Pakistan placed these specimens in 27 families and 202 putative species. COI sequences >400 bp recovered from 1,782 specimens were analyzed ...using neighbor-joining trees, Bayesian inference, barcode gap, and Barcode Index Numbers (BINs). Specimens of 109 morphological species were assigned to 123 BINs with ten species showing BIN splits, while 93 interim species included representatives of 98 BINs. Maximum conspecific divergences ranged from 0-5.3% while congeneric distances varied from 2.8-23.2%. Excepting one species pair (Oxyopes azhari-Oxyopes oryzae), the maximum intraspecific distance was always less than the nearest-neighbor (NN) distance. Intraspecific divergence values were not significantly correlated with geographic distance. Most (75%) BINs detected in this study were new to science, while those shared with other nations mainly derived from India. The discovery of many new, potentially endemic species and the low level of BIN overlap with other nations highlight the importance of constructing regional DNA barcode reference libraries.
Bulgaria is a medium-sized country located in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. It hosts a rich mycota, flora and fauna, and quite well preserved natural and semi-natural ecosystems. This is ...mostly due to the country's geographic position between the temperate and subtropical zones, the complex geological history, and the big topographic variety. The high species diversity and endemism determine the high conservation value of Bulgarian biodiversity.
The Bulgarian flora consist of more than 4,100 species, including more than 45 species of ferns, 250 species of mosses, and 2,800 higher plant species. The animals established in the country belong to 28 phyla and 75 classes. Vertebrates (858 species) comprise 2.7% of the Bulgarian fauna: 242 fishes and fish-like taxa; 24 amphibians; 40 reptiles; 452 birds; and 101 mammal species. Invertebrates account for more than 31,000 species. Over the past 25 years the number of known animals in the country has increased by over 4,500 species: from 29,000 in 1996 to 33,545 species in 2020. The total number of endemic animals is about 1,400 (4.2%). In some groups, the percentage of endemism is very high (95.5% of snails from the family Hydrobiidae and 71% of Clausiliidae; 53.6% of Diplopoda; 50.0% of terrestrial Isopoda). The richest endemic areas in Bulgaria are mostly in the mountains: Rila Mt.- 268, Pirin Mt. - 220, Western Stara Planina Mt. - 184, Western Rhodopes Mts - 183, and the Central Stara Planina Mt. – 181. Molecular data for Bulgarian animals is still insufficient, although Bulgaria ranks among the top 10 European countries in the proportion of the DNA-barcoded animal taxa; sequence coverage of animal specimens in Barcode of Life data System (BOLD) amounts to approximately 36,000 sequences from more than 7,100 Barcode index numbers (BINs).
Bulgaria is part of large-scale initiatives of the European research infrastructure such as the Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) and the MOBILISE COST Action, with mass digitization of museum collections currently underway.
Legislation to protect nature in Bulgaria dates back to the end of the 19
th
century and covers forestry (1890), the protection of certain species (1890's) and hunting (1897). Organized civil movements resulted in the establishment of the Union of Nature Protection (1928), the designation of several nature reserves (1933), and the first National Park (1934). More specific regulation followed with Ordinance for the Protection of Nature (1936). The Red Data Book of Bulgaria was published as early as 1984 (vol. 1, Plants) and 1985 (vol. 2, Animals), with a second updated edition in 2011. Bulgaria is also among the first countries to prepare a National Strategy for Biodiversity Protection (1993, adopted in 1998) following the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) process. Since then, several national plans for protection of biodiversity have been adopted including assessments of the threats, objectives, and measures for their achievement.
According to recent references, such as the Red Data Book (Beshkov 2011) and the Article 17 reports of 2014 and 2020, the main threats to biodiversity in Bulgaria at the beginning of the 21st century have been human induced degradation: fragmentation and loss of habitats; industrial, agricultural and household waste pollution; direct exploitation of biological resources; genetic ingression and invasive alien species; and global climate change effects. A set of drivers for the loss of biodiversity is related to agriculture and land management, including the whole spectrum from intensification to the abandonment of traditional land, and wetland management practices.
Accurate and cost-effective methods for tracking changes in arthropod communities are needed to develop integrative environmental monitoring programs in the Arctic. To date, even baseline data on ...their species composition at established ecological monitoring sites are severely lacking. We present the results of a pilot assessment of non-marine arthropod diversity in a middle arctic tundra area near Ikaluktutiak (Cambridge Bay), Victoria Island, Nunavut, undertaken in 2018 using DNA barcodes. A total of 1264 Barcode Index Number (BIN) clusters, used as a proxy for species, were recorded. The efficacy of widely used sampling methods was assessed. Yellow pan traps captured 62% of the entire BIN diversity at the study sites. When complemented with soil and leaf litter sifting, the coverage rose up to 74.6%. Combining community-based data collection with high-throughput DNA barcoding has the potential to overcome many of the logistic, financial, and taxonomic obstacles for large-scale monitoring of the Arctic arthropod fauna.
In 1979 nearly 1400 spider species in 32 families either had been recorded (1249) or were believed to occur (~140) in Canada. Twenty years later, although significant progress had been made in survey ...efforts in some regions, Canada's spider inventory had only increased by approximately 7% to roughly 1500 species known or expected to occur. The family count had increased to 38 but only two additions were truly novel (five family additions and one family deletion were the result of advances in family-level systematics). The first comprehensive taxonomic checklist of Canadian spider species was published in 2010 documenting the regional distributions of 1376 species representing 42 families (three novel since 1999). From 2010 through 2017 new national records steadily accumulated resulting in the current (2018) Canadian inventory of 1477 species classified in 45 families (one novel since 2010). Although there has been close to a 20% increase in the number of spider species recorded in Canada since 1979, much greater increases have occurred in some of the regional species checklists, indicating increasing knowledge of the regional distribution of species previously recorded elsewhere in Canada. For example the regional checklists for Newfoundland, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island have increased by 69%, 339%, and 520%, respectively. The national and regional increases reflect significant advances in the first two decades of the 21
Century in spider faunistics research in previously under-sampled habitats and regions and the development of molecular techniques and consequent barcoding of spiders. Of the 1477 species recorded in Canada, 92% have been successfully DNA barcoded resulting in 1623 unique Barcode Index Numbers (BINs). At least 25 of the BINs are associated with relatively easily distinguished but undescribed morpho-species. The majority, however, appear to indicate the existence of many cryptic species within Canada's known spider fauna. These data, coupled with the fact that novel Canadian or even Nearctic spider species records (including of undescribed species) continue to accumulate annually (especially in habitat-diverse regions such as British Columbia), suggest that Canada's tally of spider species may approach or even exceed 1800.
BACKGROUND: Arctic ecosystems, especially those near transition zones, are expected to be strongly impacted by climate change. Because it is positioned on the ecotone between tundra and boreal ...forest, the Churchill area is a strategic locality for the analysis of shifts in faunal composition. This fact has motivated the effort to develop a comprehensive biodiversity inventory for the Churchill region by coupling DNA barcoding with morphological studies. The present study represents one element of this effort; it focuses on analysis of the spider fauna at Churchill. RESULTS: 198 species were detected among 2704 spiders analyzed, tripling the count for the Churchill region. Estimates of overall diversity suggest that another 10–20 species await detection. Most species displayed little intraspecific sequence variation (maximum <1%) in the barcode region of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene, but four species showed considerably higher values (maximum = 4.1-6.2%), suggesting cryptic species. All recognized species possessed a distinct haplotype array at COI with nearest-neighbour interspecific distances averaging 8.57%. Three species new to Canada were detected: Robertus lyrifer (Theridiidae), Baryphyma trifrons (Linyphiidae), and Satilatlas monticola (Linyphiidae). The first two species may represent human-mediated introductions linked to the port in Churchill, but the other species represents a range extension from the USA. The first description of the female of S. monticola was also presented. As well, one probable new species of Alopecosa (Lycosidae) was recognized. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides the first comprehensive DNA barcode reference library for the spider fauna of any region. Few cryptic species of spiders were detected, a result contrasting with the prevalence of undescribed species in several other terrestrial arthropod groups at Churchill. Because most (97.5%) sequence clusters at COI corresponded with a named taxon, DNA barcoding reliably identifies spiders in the Churchill fauna. The capacity of DNA barcoding to enable the identification of otherwise taxonomically ambiguous specimens (juveniles, females) also represents a major advance for future monitoring efforts on this group.
A new species, Alopecosa koponeni sp. n., is described from the Arctic part of Manitoba. Individuals of A. koponeni most resemble those of A. pictilis (Emerton, 1885), but are smaller than the latter ...and differ in the epiginum and in colour pattern in both sexes. DNA barcode results show an interspecific distance of 0.93 between A. koponeni sp. n. and A. pictilis, a shallow genetic divergence that suggests a recent separation.
A total of 294 species from 31 families have been found in Galichitsa Mt. Of them, 85 species are new to the mountain, while 20 are also new to the fauna of FYR of Macedonia. According to their ...current distribution the established species can be assigned to 17 zoogeographical categories, grouped into 5 complexes (Cosmopolitan, Holarctic, European, Mediterranean, Endemics of Balkans). Dominant are Holarctic species (66.0%) followed by European (16.5%) and Mediterranean (9.3%). The endemics (6.2%) and Southeast European species (1.7%) emphasize the local character of this fauna, but its low percentage suggests an important process of colonization.
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