RAPID INVENTORY VIA DNA BARCODING: CROSS-LEPIDOPTERAN DIVERSITY SURVEY OF NOURAGUES INSELBERG, FRENCH GUIANA Lees, D. (1), Ohshima, I. (2), Kawakita, A. (3), Kawahara, A. (4), ROUGERIE, R. (5), Smith, M.A. (6), Decaens, T. (5), Adamski, D. (7), Lopez-Vaamonde, C. (8)
Some colleagues recently presented a talk at the 4th Barcode of Life meeting in Australia describing a diagnostic (~99%) codon for macro- versus micro- moths. Very interested to see this paper: "For some higher taxa, the barcode also contains information reliably flagging these groups, even with no prior representative of a genus/species in the DNA database. For example, a single character (phenylalanine, 178th codon) flags (at ~99% efficiency) the most important clade of larger moths (Macroheterocera). Use of such character information would be a powerful feature in the BOLD identification procedure, because some so-called ‘microlepidoptera’ have similar barcodes to some traditionally termed ‘macros’." See also my paper using barcodes to provide higher taxa assignments in absence genus/species matches.
About me
- johnjameswilson
- Liverpool, United Kingdom
- I am interested in how we can use DNA sequences to understand biodiversity – how do we recognise species, and how are species related at taxonomic, ecological and geographic levels? My passion for biodiversity research has led me from the world’s largest natural history collection - Natural History Museum, London, where I completed my MSc, to the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario - global centre for the international Barcode of Life, as a PhD student, and to the hyper-diverse tropics of Southeast Asia. The tropics will be the first regions to experience historically unprecedented climates and this will happen within the next decade. Consequently my recent research has focussed on understanding the effects of urbanisation and climate change on tropical and subtropical biodiversity - encompassing both species richness and ecological integrity across a diversity of taxonomic groups.
