Integrative taxonomy applied to large-scale discovery and understanding of insect biodiversity patterns in the Amazon Rainforest

• Grant number: 24/03810-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: May 01, 2024
• End date: April 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Taxonomy of Recent Groups
• Principal Investigator: Dalton de Souza Amorim
• Grantee: Daniel Dias Dornelas do Carmo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/14092-0 - Insect biodiversity in an Amazon tropical forest: species richness, vertical structure and faunistic turnover, AP.TEM

Abstract

This proposal is part of the Thematic Project: "Insect biodiversity in an Amazonian tropical forest Species richness, vertical structure and faunal turnover" (Proc. FAPESP 2021/14.092-0), which aims to answer complex questions about the composition and spatial structure of the insect biodiversity in an Amazonian tropical forest: (1) what is the size, in number of species, of the Hexapoda fauna in a tropical forest location; (2) what are the vertical distribution patterns of species richness and abundance in different orders of insects in a tropical forest; (3) what percentage of insect species are not collected at ground level in a tropical forest; (4) what is the composition of taxonomic groups of insects in the canopy; (5) what guilds are and how the different orders of Hexapoda are vertically organized; (6) what are the seasonality patterns of different groups of Hexapoda; (7) what is the bias of Malaise traps in sizing the real diversity of insect species in a collection area; (8) what are the vertical migration patterns of insect fauna throughout the day in different groups of insects; (9) what is the turnover of fauna in different groups of insects between interfluves in the Amazon; (10) how the insect fauna evolved throughout the Late Cretaceous and Early Cenozoic as the angiosperm forest canopies themselves emerged. To answer these questions, new generation large-scale amplicon sequencing will be used, amplifying many copies of Cytochrome Oxidity I from 320,000 insect specimens. COI has been widely used for DNA barcoding in different animal groups and has proven successful in delimiting clusters and identifying different groups. The postdoctoral fellow, who has two training periods at the Museum für Naturkunde: (1) will coordinate and supervise the team working on the project's sequencing pipeline of all Hexapoda groups; (2) work on troubleshooting the extraction and sequencing pipeline; (3) evaluate the effectiveness of the COI in the taxonomy of the different groups studied; (4) using bioinformatics tools, delimit sequence clusters (which function as initial hypotheses of species). Specimens from the same clusters are gathered and sent to coordinators of each Hexapoda order, who separates the material from each family in order and sends it to specialists. The scholarship holder will also be expected to work on the study of clusters from their groups of expertise, training laboratory teams from different regions of the country in the techniques used during the project, participating in student orientation and in the preparation of the project's central manuscripts. This project is the first to use molecular data for the discovery and large-scale inventory of arthropods in the Amazon forest canopy, together with the techniques used, considered the most modern today in biodiversity studies, has the potential to revolutionize the studies in this area in the country. The engagement of a young researcher in this project is of fundamental importance for the continuity of the lines of research contemplated and in the training of the new generation of taxonomists. (AU)