A shortcut to sample coverage standardization in metabarcoding data provides new insights into land-use effects on insect diversity
Identifying key drivers of insect diversity decline in the Anthropocene remains a major challenge in biodiversity research. Metabarcoding has rapidly gained popularity for species identification, yet the lack of abundance data complicates accurate diversity metrics like sample coverage-standardized species richness. Additionally, the vast number of taxa lacks a unified phylogeny or trait database. We introduce a new workflow for metabarcoding insect data that constructs a phylogenetic tree for most insect families, standardizes sample coverage and assesses both taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity along the Hill series. Applying this workflow to Central Europe, we analysed insect diversity from 400 families across a land-use gradient. Our results show that land-use intensity significantly affects sample coverage, highlighting the necessity of biodiversity standardization. Taxonomic diversity declined by 27-44% and phylogenetic diversity by 13-29% across 39 000 operational taxonomic units, with diversity decreasing from forests to agricultural areas. When focusing on rare species communities exhibited greater phylogenetic diversity loss than taxonomic diversity, whereas dominant species experienced smaller phylogenetic losses but more pronounced declines in taxonomic diversity. Our findings underscore the detrimental effects of agriculture on insect taxa and reveal a dramatic loss of phylogenetic diversity among rare species with potential consequences for ecosystem stability.
Authors
- Jérôme Morinière (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9167-6409)
- Anne Chao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4364-8101)
- Ute Fricke (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5284-4518)
- Oliver Mitesser (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3607-877X)
- Jie Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2599-5983)
- Cristina Ganuza (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4197-1829)
- Sarah Redlich (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5609-0576)
- Vedran Bozicevic (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8778-3399)
- Johannes Uhler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3022-1229)
- Cynthia Tobisch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2039-1462)
- Jana Englmeier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0559-1618)
- Chun‐Huo Chiu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7096-2278)
- Ingolf Steffan‐Dewenter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1359-3944)
- Maria Haensel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4530-8968)
- Jörg C. Müller (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1409-1586)
- Christoph Moning (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-4519-4451)
- Christoph Heibl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7655-3299)
- Torsten Hothorn (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8301-0471)
- Jörg Ewald (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2758-9324)
- Mareike Kortmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4210-5276)
- Julia Rothacher (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0083-7893)
- Sandra Rojas‐Botero (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0366-7383)
Institutions
- National Taiwan University (TW)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- National Tsing Hua University (TW)
- University of Würzburg (DE)
- Bavarian Forest National Park (DE)
- Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences (DE)
- University of Bayreuth (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
- Published
- 2025-05-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.2927
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 12.01
Funders
- Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Forsten