R. Meier

RESOLVING BIOLOGY'S DARK MATTER: SPECIES RICHNESS, SPATIOTEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION, AND COMMUNITY COMPOSITION OF A DARK TAXON

The paper uses DNA barcoding to study scuttle flies in Sweden, revealing high diversity and showing that climate factors strongly influence their distribution.

Implementing high-throughput insect barcoding in microbiome studies: impact of non-destructive DNA extraction on microbiome reconstruction

This study evaluates the impact of non-destructive DNA extraction using HotSHOT on microbiome reconstruction in insect specimens, finding it suitable for community composition but less reliable for abundance estimates.

Megabarcoding reveals a tale of two very different dark taxa along the same elevational gradient

The paper uses megabarcoding to show that two Diptera taxa have distinct spatio-temporal distributions along an elevational gradient in a temperate forest.

An integrative taxonomic treatment of the Mycetophilidae (Diptera: Bibionomorpha) from Singapore reveals 115 new species on 730km2

The paper describes 115 new species of fungus gnats from Singapore using molecular and morphological data, highlighting the taxonomic challenges in species-rich clades.

"Dark taxonomy": a new protocol for overcoming the taxonomic impediments for dark taxa and broadening the taxon base for biodiversity assessment

This paper introduces 'dark taxonomy' to address taxonomic impediments by using small-scale revisions and integrative methods, increasing described species in the Oriental region by 25%.

Rapid species discovery and identification with real-time barcoding facilitated by ONTbarcoder 2.0 and Oxford Nanopore R10.4

This paper introduces ONTbarcoder 2.0, a software tool that enables rapid species discovery and identification using Oxford Nanopore R10.4 sequencing technology by providing real-time barcoding capabilities.

Express barcoding with NextGenPCR and MinION for species-level sorting of ecological samples

This paper introduces a rapid, low-cost barcoding workflow using NextGenPCR and MinION sequencers to identify species in ecological samples within 6 hours.

Network analysis with either Illumina or MinION reveals that detecting vertebrate species requires metabarcoding of iDNA from a diverse fly community

The paper uses metabarcoding of iDNA from dung and carrion flies to detect vertebrate species in a swamp forest, finding that 18 of 20 vertebrate species are detectable within 150m of a road.

Global convergence of dominance and neglect in flying insect diversity

The paper analyzes global flying insect diversity using DNA sequencing from Malaise traps, finding 20 families dominate species diversity worldwide despite high species turnover and taxonomic neglect.

Global determinants of insect mitochondrial genetic diversity

The paper maps global insect mitochondrial genetic diversity, finding a quadratic latitudinal gradient and correlations with temperature and climate stability.

DiversityScanner: Robotic discovery of small invertebrates with machine learning methods

DiversityScanner automates invertebrate sorting and classification using a robot and CNN, achieving 91.4% precision in identifying 14 insect classes and estimating biomass.

Towards environmental DNA-based bioassessment of freshwater reservoirs with small volumes of water: robust molecular protocols

The paper optimizes eDNA protocols for small water volumes to assess freshwater reservoirs, finding that 15 mL captures reservoir-specific differences despite technical replicate variance.

Riding into the future on a fly: toward a better understanding of phoresy and avian lice evolution (Phthiraptera) by screening bird carcasses for phoretic lice on hippoboscid flies (Diptera)

The paper uses NGS barcoding to study phoretic relationships between avian lice and hippoboscid flies by screening bird carcasses, discovering new phoresy cases and interaction networks.

Twisting to freedom: The evolution of copulation termination techniques across 48 species of sepsids (Diptera, Sepsidae)

This study examines copulation termination techniques in 48 sepsid fly species, identifying three behaviors and their evolutionary relationships.

A re-analysis of the data in Sharkey et al.'s (2021) minimalist revision reveals that BINs do not deserve names, but BOLD Systems needs a stronger commitment to open science

This paper re-analyzes BINs from Sharkey et al. (2021) and finds they are unstable and insufficiently described, highlighting issues with BOLD Systems' use of proprietary data and algorithms.

Large-scale Integrative Taxonomy (LIT): resolving the data conundrum for dark taxa

The paper introduces Large-scale Integrative Taxonomy (LIT) to efficiently delimit species in dark taxa by combining rapid, low-cost data with targeted validation, achieving high congruence with morphology.

MinION barcodes: biodiversity discovery and identification by everyone, for everyone

This paper introduces a low-cost, accessible workflow and software for DNA barcoding using MinION sequencing, achieving high accuracy comparable to Sanger and Illumina methods.

Mangroves are an overlooked hotspot of insect diversity despite low plant diversity

The paper compares insect diversity across different forest types and finds that mangroves, despite low plant diversity, host a rich and distinct insect fauna.

Nitrogen deposition is negatively related to species richness and abundance of threatened species in Swiss butterflies

This study finds that nitrogen deposition negatively affects butterfly species richness and abundance, particularly for threatened species, using data from Swiss biodiversity monitoring.

Completing Linneaus's inventory of the Swedish insect fauna: only 5,000 species left?

The paper estimates the Swedish insect fauna contains around 33,000 species, with 5,000 remaining to be discovered, highlighting taxonomic and ecological biases in current knowledge.

Faecal DNA to the rescue: Shotgun sequencing of non-invasive samples reveals two subspecies of Southeast Asian primates to be Critically Endangered species

This study uses shotgun sequencing of faecal DNA to reclassify two subspecies of langurs as Critically Endangered species.

Longer is not always better: Optimizing barcode length for large-scale species discovery and identification

This study compares full-length and mini-barcodes for species identification using empirical and GenBank datasets, finding no significant performance difference for mini-barcodes over 200-bp.

Rapid, large-scale species discovery in hyperdiverse taxa using 1D MinION sequencing

This paper demonstrates the use of MinION sequencing for rapid, large-scale species discovery in the hyperdiverse Phoridae fly family, identifying over 650 species from a single trap in Uganda.

A Bayesian framework for identifying consistent patterns of microbial abundance between body sites

The paper introduces a Bayesian framework to identify microbes with consistent abundance patterns between body sites related to a phenotypic variable, demonstrating its effectiveness using pancreatic cancer patient data.

PIKfyve/Fab1 is required for efficient V-ATPase and hydrolase delivery to phagosomes, phagosomal killing, and restriction of Legionella infection

This paper shows that PIKfyve is essential for delivering V-ATPase and proteases to phagosomes, enabling acidification and killing of bacteria, and protecting against Legionella infection.