Rapid Biodiversity Assessment using DNA Barcodes in Exploratories: A case study on Diptera

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Ecological research projects that consider changes of biodiversity need inventories of species to compare habitat states or to analyze the impact of experimental manipulations of habitat parameters. Conventional species determination is time consuming and often requires the cooperation of many taxonomists. DNA barcoding is a new opportunity to overcome the taxonomic impediment and to produce more precise and extensive data on the presence of species. We propose a pilot study to implement DNA barcoding for the analysis of species richness and diversity in the DFG biodiversity exploratories. We focus on Diptera, a taxon that is species rich, abundant, and where species identification is difficult. The proposed project has several major goals: To develop a DNA barcode database for German Diptera, with a focus on taxa found in the exploratories, to work with MOTUs to apply reverse taxonomy to ecological samples as long as Linnean names are not available and the database is incomplete, to develop a workflow for this purpose, and to test the feasibility of mass-sequencing with the second-generation sequencing technology. The project includes testing of ecological hypotheses like statements about the effect of forest management regimes on the diversity of feeding guilds.