Jason L. Robinson

Accelerated construction of a regional DNA-barcode reference library: caddisflies (Trichoptera) in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Abstract Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) barcoding is an effective tool for species identification and life-stage association in a wide range of animal taxa. We developed a strategy for rapid construction of a regional DNA-barcode reference library and used the caddisflies (Trichoptera) of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) as a model. Nearly 1000 cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences, representing 209 caddisfly species previously recorded from GSMNP, were obtained from the global Trichoptera Barcode of Life campaign. Most of these sequences were collected from outside the GSMNP area. Another 645 COI sequences, representing 80 species, were obtained from specimens collected in a 3-d bioblitz (short-term, intense sampling program) in GSMNP. The joint collections provided barcode coverage for 212 species, 91% of the GSMNP fauna. Inclusion of samples from other localities greatly expedited construction of the regional DNA-barcode reference library. This strategy increased intraspecific divergence and decreased average distances to nearest neighboring species, but the DNA-barcode library was able to differentiate 93% of the GSMNP Trichoptera species examined. Global barcoding projects will aid construction of regional DNA-barcode libraries, but local surveys make crucial contributions to progress by contributing rare or endemic species and full-length barcodes generated from high-quality DNA. DNA taxonomy is not a goal of our present work, but the investigation of COI divergence patterns in caddisflies is providing new insights into broader biodiversity patterns in this group and has directed attention to various issues, ranging from the need to re-evaluate species taxonomy with integrated morphological and molecular evidence to the necessity of an appropriate interpretation of barcode analyses and its implications in understanding species diversity (in contrast to a simple claim for barcoding failure).

The Trichoptera barcode initiative: a strategy for generating a species-level Tree of Life.

DNA barcoding was intended as a means to provide species-level identifications through associating DNA sequences from unknown specimens to those from curated reference specimens. Although barcodes were not designed for phylogenetics, they can be beneficial to the completion of the Tree of Life. The barcode database for Trichoptera is relatively comprehensive, with data from every family, approximately two-thirds of the genera, and one-third of the described species. Most Trichoptera, as with most of lifes species, have never been subjected to any formal phylogenetic analysis. Here, we present a phylogeny with over 16 000 unique haplotypes as a working hypothesis that can be updated as our estimates improve. We suggest a strategy of implementing constrained tree searches, which allow larger datasets to dictate the backbone phylogeny, while the barcode data fill out the tips of the tree. We also discuss how this phylogeny could be used to focus taxonomic attention on ambiguous species boundaries and hidden biodiversity. We suggest that systematists continue to differentiate between ‘Barcode Index Numbers’ (BINs) and ‘species’ that have been formally described. Each has utility, but they are not synonyms. We highlight examples of integrative taxonomy, using both barcodes and morphology for species description. This article is part of the themed issue ‘From DNA barcodes to biomes’.

Ohio USA stoneflies (Insecta, Plecoptera): species richness estimation, distribution of functional niche traits, drainage affiliations, and relationships to other states

Abstract Ohio is an eastern USA state that historically was >70% covered in upland and mixed coniferous forest; about 60% of it glaciated by the Wisconsinan glacial episode. Its stonefly fauna has been studied in piecemeal fashion until now. The assemblage of Ohio stoneflies was assessed from over 4,000 records accumulated from 18 institutions, new collections, and trusted literature sources. Species richness totaled 102 with estimators Chao2 and ICE Mean predicting 105.6 and 106.4, respectively. Singletons and doubletons totaled 18 species. All North American families were represented with Perlidae accounted for the highest number of species at 34. The family Peltoperlidae contributed a single species. Most species had univoltine–fast life cycles with the vast majority emerging in summer, although there was a significant component of winter stoneflies. Nine United States Geological Survey hierarchical drainage units level 6 (HUC6) were used to stratify specimen data. Species richness was significantly related to the number of unique HUC6 locations, but there was no relationship with HUC6 drainage area. A nonparametric multidimensional scaling analysis found that larger HUC6s in the western part of the state had similar assemblages with lower species richness that were found to align with more savanna and wetland habitat. Other drainages having richer assemblages were aligned with upland deciduous and mixed coniferous forests of the east and south where slopes were higher. The Ohio assemblage was most similar to the well–studied fauna of Indiana (88 spp.) and Kentucky (108 spp.), two neighboring states. Many rare species and several high quality stream reaches should be considered for greater protection.

Diversity of mitochondrial and larval morphology characters in the genus Diplectrona (Trichoptera: Hydropsychidae) in the eastern United States

Larvae of species in the caddisfly genus Diplectrona (Trichoptera: Hydropsychidae) are morphologically variable and found in a variety of different lotic habitats across eastern N. America. DNA sequencing of a 658-base pair region of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase c subunit I gene revealed 7 haplotype groups within the genus Diplectrona: Four with larvae similar to Diplectrona modesta Banks, two with larvae similar to D. metaqui Ross, and one that is a putative match to D. marianae Reeves. These results provide initial evidence supporting the need for a revision of the genus Diplectrona in N. America, and also possibly for the existence of cryptic diversity within currently recognized Diplectrona species. We discuss these results within the context of the intersection of bioassessment, molecular and morphological taxonomy, and the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.

Caddisfly (Trichoptera) Records for North Carolina

Abstract Information is presented on 348 Trichoptera (caddisfly) species recorded from North Carolina, including 76 new state records. This information includes distribution across 4 ecoregions, occurrence by stream size, and the 1st published North Carolina record for each species.

Conservation of aquatic insect species across a protected area network: null model reveals shortfalls of biogeographical knowledge

The effective conservation of species requires some understanding of where populations occur in a landscape. Gaps in this knowledge base (the “Wallacean Shortfall” of some authors) may coincide with hotspots of diversity for different plant and animal species, requiring the cooperation of a number of different federal, state, local and non-governmental agencies for effective conservation. In this example, the distribution and abundance of benthic macroinvertebrates are widely used as metrics for water quality monitoring, but far less is known about these organisms qua species (taxonomic orders EPT—Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera). In this study, we inventoried a network of individual US National Park units for species in these orders. These parks are located in geological, ecological and historical places of interest across the states of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. We sampled these parks in a multi-year intensive inventory in order to determine the composition of the aquatic insect fauna in each park. Since there are no comprehensive accounts of the geographic ranges of these species, we compiled published accounts of species occurrences in these and adjacent states (Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia) to construct a potential species pool for each state. This pool comprised our best estimate of the EPT species that might potentially occur in each state. We used these source pools to test null hypotheses on whether parks disproportionately under- or over-protect species in different categories of risk of imperilment. We find that parks have fewer rare (G1) species than expected from a null model, and parks over-protect some of the most common (G5) species in the network. This pattern would be expected if the actual landscape distributions of the most imperiled (G1) species are small and/or disjunct and tend to occur outside of the national parks in the region. Interactions between park shape (and size) and individual species geographic ranges are likely to influence the precision of estimates of the potential species pool within a protected area. More research is needed on the distribution of imperiled species across the entire geographic range of species, and the traditional practice of compilation and reporting of occurrence records by state is not sufficient for informed conservation practice. State natural heritage programs and biodiversity conservation database efforts (e.g. NatureServe) implicitly recognize the importance of species ranges, but our analysis demonstrates the need to assess these patterns at a finer spatial grain in order for these state lists to serve as meaningful expectations of the composition of species assemblages. Our analysis considers only a tiny fraction of the protected lands in the region, and an enormous additional area of protected lands exists where many of these rare species occur. More precise and accurate reporting of EPT species occurrences in this region will allow resource managers to target the conservation of particular species within single parks, or across protected area networks.

An Annotated Checklist of the Caddisflies (Insecta: Trichoptera) of Kentucky

Abstract Distributional records for 293 caddisfly species representing 22 families and 68 genera are reported from Kentucky along with information on taxonomy, flight period, habitat, and conservation status. Sixty-nine species represent new records for the Commonwealth. Kentuckys geographic regions are compared with respect to species richness. Distributions are summarized for all species; detailed occurrence data are provided for new records, species with limited distributions, and those representing substantial range extensions. A total of 69 species (24% of the fauna) are identified as imperiled or vulnerable within Kentucky.

A fossil caddisfly (Insecta: Trichoptera) from the Eocene of Colorado

A new genus and species of fossil caddisfly (Insecta: Trichoptera) from the Lower Eocene (Ypresian) Green River Formation of Colorado is described. Litholimnephilops yinani gen. et sp. nov. is the first adult caddisfly to be described from the Green River Formation, and is characterized by large adult body size, presence of ocelli, dark leg spines, and a lack of terminal crossveins in the anterior anastomosis region of the forewings. Terminal genitalia are not visible in the preserved specimen. Familial placement is uncertain, though similarities with the families Limnephilidae and Phryganeidae are observed.

New Record of Northern Long-eared Bats in Coastal South Carolina

Abstract Myotis septentrionalis (Northern Long-eared Bat) is widely distributed in North America, from the Appalachians to the Maritime Provinces and west to British Columbia. In November 2016, we captured 2 non-reproductive Northern Long-eared Bats, 1 female and 1 male, in nets set in Beaufort County, coastal South Carolina. Previous records for the species indicate its nearest breeding colonies are >350 km away, and it had not been documented in South Carolina outside the Blue Ridge region. Although the Northern Long-eared Bat is known to move between summer roosts and winter hibernacula, it is not considered a long-distance migrant. Our records potentially represent an unrecognized coastal population rather than stray individuals. Such a population may be important for the survival of the species, which has been severely impacted elsewhere in its range by white-nose syndrome, a disease that is caused by the introduced fungal pathogen, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, which has not yet been recorded in coastal South Carolina.

Species-free species distribution models describe macroecological properties of protected area networks

Among the greatest challenges facing the conservation of plants and animal species in protected areas are threats from a rapidly changing climate. An altered climate creates both challenges and opportunities for improving the management of protected areas in networks. Increasingly, quantitative tools like species distribution modeling are used to assess the performance of protected areas and predict potential responses to changing climates for groups of species, within a predictive framework. At larger geographic domains and scales, protected area network units have spatial geoclimatic properties that can be described in the gap analysis typically used to measure or aggregate the geographic distributions of species (stacked species distribution models, or S-SDM). We extend the use of species distribution modeling techniques in order to model the climate envelope (or “footprint”) of individual protected areas within a network of protected areas distributed across the 48 conterminous United States and managed by the US National Park System. In our approach we treat each protected area as the geographic range of a hypothetical endemic species, then use MaxEnt and 5 uncorrelated BioClim variables to model the geographic distribution of the climatic envelope associated with each protected area unit (modeling the geographic area of park units as the range of a species). We describe the individual and aggregated climate envelopes predicted by a large network of 163 protected areas and briefly illustrate how macroecological measures of geodiversity can be derived from our analysis of the landscape ecological context of protected areas. To estimate trajectories of change in the temporal distribution of climatic features within a protected area network, we projected the climate envelopes of protected areas in current conditions onto a dataset of predicted future climatic conditions. Our results suggest that the climate envelopes of some parks may be locally unique or have narrow geographic distributions, and are thus prone to future shifts away from the climatic conditions in these parks in current climates. In other cases, some parks are broadly similar to large geographic regions surrounding the park or have climatic envelopes that may persist into near-term climate change. Larger parks predict larger climatic envelopes, in current conditions, but on average the predicted area of climate envelopes are smaller in our single future conditions scenario. Individual units in a protected area network may vary in the potential for climate adaptation, and adaptive management strategies for the network should account for the landscape contexts of the geodiversity or climate diversity within individual units. Conservation strategies, including maintaining connectivity, assessing the feasibility of assisted migration and other landscape restoration or enhancements can be optimized using analysis methods to assess the spatial properties of protected area networks in biogeographic and macroecological contexts.