From DNA barcodes to ecology: meta-analysis of central European beetles
reveal link with species ecology but also to data pattern and gaps
Abstract
DNA barcoding has been used worldwide to identify biological specimens
and to delimit species. It represents a cost-effective, fast and
efficient way to assess biodiversity with help of the public Barcode of
Life Database (BOLD) accounting for more than 236,000 animal species and
more than ten million barcode sequences. Here, we performed a
meta-analysis of available barcode data of central European Coleoptera
to detect intraspecific genetic patterns among ecological groups in
relation to geographic distance with the aim to investigate a possible
link between infraspecific variation and species ecology. We collected
information regarding feeding style, body size as well as habitat and
biotope preferences. Mantel tests and two variants of Procrustes
analysis, both involving the Principal Coordinates Neighborhood Matrices
(PCNM) approach, were applied on genetic and geographic distance
matrices. However, significance levels were too low to further use the
outcome for further trait investigation: these were in mean for all
ecological guilds only 7.5, 9.4, or 15.6 % for PCNM+PCA, NMDS+PCA, and
Mantel test, respectively, or at best 28% for a single guild. Our study
confirmed that certain ecological traits were associated with higher
species diversity and foster stronger genetic differentiation. Results
suggest that increased numbers of species, sampling localities, and
specimens for a chosen area of interest may give new insights to explore
barcode data and species ecology for the scope of conservation on a
larger scale.