Resolving biology’s dark matter: species richness, spatiotemporal distribution, and community composition of a dark taxon
Understanding the bulk of the diversity around us is imperative during an era of biodiversity change. We show that dark insect taxa can be efficiently characterised and surveyed with megabarcoding. Undersampling of rare taxa and choice of operational taxonomic units do not alter the main ecological inferences, making it an opportune time to tackle zoology's dark matter.
Authors
- Mirkka M. Jones (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8157-8730)
- Rudolf Meier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4452-2885)
- Leshon Lee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1922-1199)
- Otso Ovaskainen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9750-4421)
- Tomas V. Roslin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2957-4791)
- Emily Hartop (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8598-9844)
- Amrita Srivathsan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7988-3437)
- Pablo Peña‐Aguilera (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8999-1140)
Institutions
- Museum für Naturkunde (DE)
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- Stockholm University (SE)
- National University of Singapore (SG)
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO)
- Helsinki Institute of Physics (FI)
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SE)
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE)
- University of Jyväskylä (FI)
Publication Details
- Journal
- BMC Biology
- Published
- 2024-09-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-024-02010-z
- Citations
- 19
- Primary Topic
- Species Distribution and Climate Change
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 17.47
Funders
- Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet
- European Commission
- National University of Singapore
- Academy of Finland
- St. Olavs Hospital Universitetssykehuset i Trondheim
- H2020 European Research Council