A shortcut to sample coverage standardization in metabarcoding data provides new insights into land-use effects on insect diversity
Journal
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Journal Volume
292
Journal Issue
2046
ISSN
1471-2954
Date Issued
2025-05
Author(s)
Kortmann, Mareike
Chao, Anne
Heibl, Christoph
Mitesser, Oliver
Morinière, Jérôme
Bozicevic, Vedran
Hothorn, Torsten
Rothacher, Julia
Englmeier, Jana
Ewald, Jörg
Fricke, Ute
Ganuza, Cristina
Haensel, Maria
Moning, Christoph
Redlich, Sarah
Rojas-Botero, Sandra
Tobisch, Cynthia
Uhler, Johannes
Zhang, Jie
Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf
Müller, Jörg
Abstract
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.
Subjects
biodiversity
climate change
Hill numbers
phylogenetic diversity
phylogenetic tree
taxonomic diversity
Publisher
The Royal Society
Description
Article number: 20242927
Type
journal article