title: Rapid dissemination of taxonomic discoveries based on DNA barcoding and morphology.
abstract: The taxonomic impediment is characterized by dwindling classical taxonomic expertise, and slow pace of revisionary work, thus more rapid taxonomic assessments are needed. Here we pair rapid DNA barcoding methods with swift assessment of morphology in an effort to gauge diversity, establish species limits, and rapidly disseminate taxonomic information prior to completion of formal taxonomic revisions. We focus on a poorly studied, but diverse spider genus, Pseudopoda, from East Asia. We augmented the standard barcoding locus (COI) with nuclear DNA sequence data (ITS2) and analyzed congruence among datasets and species delimitation methods for a total of 572 individuals representing 23 described species and many potentially new species. Our results suggest that a combination of CO1 + ITS2 fragments identify and diagnose species better than the mitochondrial barcodes alone, and that certain tree based methods yield considerably higher diversity estimates than the distance-based approaches and morphology. Combined, through an extensive field survey, we detect a twofold increase in species diversity in the surveyed area, at 42-45, with most species representing short range endemics. Our study demonstrates the power of biodiversity assessments and swift dissemination of taxonomic data through rapid inventory, and through a combination of morphological and multi-locus DNA barcoding diagnoses of diverse arthropod lineages.
authors.affiliation: Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Green Transformation of Bio-Resources, Centre for Behavioural Ecology and Evolution, College of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, Hubei, China.
authors.forename: Xiaowei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Green Transformation of Bio-Resources, Centre for Behavioural Ecology and Evolution, College of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, Hubei, China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Green Transformation of Bio-Resources, Centre for Behavioural Ecology and Evolution, College of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, Hubei, China.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: College of Life Sciences, Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang 110034, Liaoning, China.
authors.forename: Guo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Green Transformation of Bio-Resources, Centre for Behavioural Ecology and Evolution, College of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, Hubei, China.|Institute of Biology, Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Novi Trg 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.|Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA.
authors.forename: Matjaž
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kuntner
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA.|Department of Biology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA.
authors.forename: Ingi
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Agnarsson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D002681:China; D002965:Classification / Q000379:methods*; D058893:DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D066264:Datasets as Topic; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D015723:Gene Library; D005835:Genitalia / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D033181:Information Dissemination; D008297:Male; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013045:Species Specificity; D013112:Spiders / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics; D013624:Taiwan
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV