BARCODE INITIATIVE FOR HOST-PARASITOID INSECT TROPHIC LINKS FROM THE CHAMELA-CUIXMALA BIOSPHERE RESERVE, MEXICO

ZALDÍVAR-RIVERÓN, A. (1), Zaragoza-Caballero, S. (1), Boege-Paré, K. (2), Ibarra-Vázquez, A. (1), Fernández-Triana, J. (3), Smith, A. M. (3)

(1) Instituto de Biología, UNAM, Mexico
(2) Instituto de Ecología, UNAM, Mexico
(3) University of Guelph, Canada

Parallel Talk, Barcoding Insects 2, Napier 208, Friday, 14:30 to 14:45

The tropical dry forest represents one of the most threatened ecosystems in the Neotropics, and one of the less known in terms of its biodiversity, which has traditionally been highly overlooked when compared to other tropical forests. In particular, the insect fauna that occurs in dry tropical forests is extraordinarily diverse, yet many groups have largely been neglected by taxonomists. The aim of this long-term project is to build comprehensive barcoding libraries for selected groups of coleopterans, lepidopterans and their parasitoid wasps from the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve, which comprises one of the best preserved, largest tropical dry forest regions in Mexico. Based on these libraries we seek: (1) to molecularly characterise species for the targeted groups; (2) to accelerate the recognition and description of new taxa; and (3) to assess host-parasiotid trophic links based on novel barcoding approaches (e.g. MAPL). So far, we are building extensive libraries for two of the most species-rich braconid subfamilies, Microgastrinae (~500 COI sequences) and Doryctinae (~800 COI sequences). We also started to generate barcodes for some coleopteran (Cerambycidae, Buprestidae) and lepidopteran (Papilionoidea, Noctuidae) host families, for additional parasitoid taxa (Rogadinae), as well as for host tissue remnants and gut contents of adult parasitoid wasps using novel barcoding techniques. The importance of this initiative takes more relevance since various touristic developments have recently been approved near this nature reserve area.

Keywords: Invertebrates - Terrestrial