Are well-studied marine biodiversity hotspots still blackspots for animal barcoding?

Marine biodiversity underpins ecosystem health and societal well-being. Preservation of biodiversity hotspots is a global challenge. Molecular tools, like DNA barcoding and metabarcoding, hold great potential for biodiversity monitoring, possibly outperforming more traditional taxonomic methods. However, metabarcoding-based biodiversity assessments are limited by the availability of sequences in barcoding reference databases; a lack thereof results in high percentages of unassigned sequences. In this study we (i) present the current status of known vs. barcoded marine species at a global scale based on online taxonomic and genetic databases; and (ii) compare the current status with data from ten years ago. Then we analyzed occurrence data of marine animal species from five Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) classified as biodiversity hotspots, to identify any consistent disparities in COI barcoding coverage between geographic regions and at phylum level. Barcoding coverage varied among LMEs (from 36.8% to 62.4% COI-barcoded species) and phyla (from 4.8% to 74.7% COI-barcoded species), with Porifera, Bryozoa and Platyhelminthes being highly underrepresented, compared to Chordata, Arthropoda and Mollusca. We demonstrate that although barcoded marine species increased from 9.5% to 14.2% since the last assessment in 2011, about 15,000 (corresponding to 7.8% increase) new species were described from 2011 to 2021. The next ten years will thus be crucial to enroll concrete collaborative measures and long term initiatives (e.g., Horizon 2030, Ocean Decade) to populate barcoding libraries for the marine realm.the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences (BiGeA) of the University of Bologna (UniBo). The CoMBoMed initiative was supported by the European Marine Research Network (EUROMARINE Network), the Inter-Departmental Research Centre for Environmental Sciences (CIRSA – UniBo), the Cultural Heritage Department (DBC - UniBo, https://beniculturali.unibo.it/it), the Fondazione Flaminia and the ERANet Mar-Tera Project SEAMoBB (Solutions for sEmi-Automated Monitoring of Benthic Biodiversity).Peer reviewe

Project “Biodiversity MARE Tricase”: biodiversity research, monitoring and promotion at MARE Outpost (Apulia, Italy).

none21noThe project “Biodiversity MARE Tricase” aims to research and promote coastal and marine biodiversity at the MARE Outpost (Avamposto MARE), a marine station established in Tricase (Lecce, Italy) in 2015. From March 2016 to September 2017, the first biodiversity inventory of the Tricase coastal area (Ionian Sea) was realized with the aid of citizen scientists (e.g. local fishermen, divers, bathers, and tourists). Preliminary results include 556 taxa, of which the 95% were identified at the species level. Despite the broad knowledge on Mediterranean coastal biodiversity, 71 species represented new records for the Ionian Sea. In parallel with the research activities, people’s awareness of the value of biodiversity was raised with scientific dissemination initiatives, involving about 1700 people. The “Biodiversity MARE Tricase” project realized a first small-scale species inventory contributing to the distributional, taxonomic, and ecological knowledge of the present Mediterranean biota. The coastal area of Tricase will be soon included in a new Marine Protected Area and this project represents a step forward for the sustainable development of the community of this coast.noneMicaroni, V.; Strano, F.; Di Franco, D.; Langeneck, J.; Gravili, C.; Bertolino, M.; Costa, G.; Rindi, F.; Froglia, C.; Crocetta, F.; Giangrande, A.; Nicoletti, L.; Medagli, P.; Zuccarello, V.; Arzeni, S.; Bo, M.; Betti, F.; Mastrototaro, F.; Lattanzi, L.; Piraino, S.; Boero, F.Micaroni, V.; Strano, F.; Di Franco, D.; Langeneck, J.; Gravili, C.; Bertolino, M.; Costa, G.; Rindi, F.; Froglia, C.; Crocetta, F.; Giangrande, A.; Nicoletti, L.; Medagli, P.; Zuccarello, V.; Arzeni, S.; Bo, M.; Betti, F.; Mastrototaro, F.; Lattanzi, L.; Piraino, S.; Boero, F

Are well-studied marine biodiversity hotspots still blackspots for animal barcoding?

International audienceMarine biodiversity underpins ecosystem health and societal well-being. Preservation of biodiversity hotspots is a global challenge. Molecular tools, like DNA barcoding and metabarcoding, hold great potential for biodiversity monitoring, possibly outperforming more traditional taxonomic methods. However, metabarcoding-based biodiversity assessments are limited by the availability of sequences in barcoding reference databases; a lack thereof results in high percentages of unassigned sequences. In this study, we (i) present the current status of known vs. barcoded marine animal species at a global scale based on online taxonomic and genetic databases (NCBI and BOLD) and (ii) compare the current status with data from ten years ago. Then, we focused our attention on occurrence data of marine animal species from five Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) representing the most well studied biodiversity hotspots, to identify disparities in COI barcoding coverage between geographic regions and at phylum level. Barcoding coverage varied among LMEs (from 36.8% to 62.4% COI-barcoded species) and phyla (from 4.8% to 74.7% COI-barcoded species), with Porifera, Bryozoa and Platyhelminthes being highly underrepresented, compared to Chordata, Arthropoda and Mollusca. We demonstrate that barcoded marine species increased from 9.5% to 14.2% since the last assessment in 2011, due to new barcodes both on already described species and on newly described ones (about 15,000 new species were described from 2011 to 2021). The next ten years will thus be crucial to enroll concrete collaborative measures and long term initiatives (e.g., Horizon 2030, Ocean Decade) to boost animal barcoding libraries for the marine realm