title: Plant diversity accurately predicts insect diversity in two tropical landscapes.
abstract: Plant diversity surely determines arthropod diversity, but only moderate correlations between arthropod and plant species richness had been observed until Basset et al. (Science, 338, 2012 and 1481) finally undertook an unprecedentedly comprehensive sampling of a tropical forest and demonstrated that plant species richness could indeed accurately predict arthropod species richness. We now require a high-throughput pipeline to operationalize this result so that we can (i) test competing explanations for tropical arthropod megadiversity, (ii) improve estimates of global eukaryotic species diversity, and (iii) use plant and arthropod communities as efficient proxies for each other, thus improving the efficiency of conservation planning and of detecting forest degradation and recovery. We therefore applied metabarcoding to Malaise-trap samples across two tropical landscapes in China. We demonstrate that plant species richness can accurately predict arthropod (mostly insect) species richness and that plant and insect community compositions are highly correlated, even in landscapes that are large, heterogeneous and anthropogenically modified. Finally, we review how metabarcoding makes feasible highly replicated tests of the major competing explanations for tropical megadiversity.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650223, China.|Kunming College of Life Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650204, China.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.
authors.forename: Siliang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650223, China.
authors.forename: Yinqiu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650223, China.
authors.forename: Chenxue
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650223, China.|Kunming College of Life Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650204, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoyang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650223, China.
authors.forename: Chunyan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Hainan Yinggeling National Nature Reserve, Baisha, 572800, China.
authors.forename: Hesheng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China.
authors.forename: Haisheng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: World Agroforestry Center, East and Central Asia Regional Office, Kunming, 650201, China.|Center for Mountain Ecosystem Studies (CMES), Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650201, China.
authors.forename: Rhett D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Harrison
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650223, China.|School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, Norfolk, NR47TJ, UK.
authors.forename: Douglas W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Yu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D002681:China; D058893:DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic; D007313:Insecta / Q000145:classification*; D010944:Plants / Q000145:classification*; D014329:Tropical Climate
keywords: Arthropoda; biodiversity; biomonitoring; host specificity; insect-plant interactions; surrogate species