Enhancing DNA barcode reference libraries by harvesting terrestrial arthropods at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History
2023
Bernardo Santos | Meredith Miller | Margarita Miklasevskaja | Jaclyn McKeown | Niamh Redmond | Jonathan Coddington | Jessica Bird | Scott Miller | Ashton Smith | Seán Brady | Matthew Buffington | M. Lourdes Chamorro | Torsten Dikow | Michael Gates | Paul Goldstein | Alexander Konstantinov | Robert Kula | Nicholas Silverson | M. Alma Solis | Stephanie deWaard | Suresh Naik | Nadya Nikolova | Mikko Pentinsaari | Sean Prosser | Jayme Sones | Evgeny Zakharov | Jeremy deWaard
The use of DNA barcoding has revolutionised biodiversity science, but its application depends on the existence of comprehensive and reliable reference libraries. For many poorly known taxa, such reference sequences are missing even at higher-level taxonomic scales. We harvested the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (USNM) to generate DNA barcoding sequences for genera of terrestrial arthropods previously not recorded in one or more major public sequence databases. Our workflow used a mix of Sanger and Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) approaches to maximise sequence recovery while ensuring affordable cost. In total, COI sequences were obtained for 5,686 specimens belonging to 3,737 determined species in 3,886 genera and 205 families distributed in 137 countries. Success rates varied widely according to collection data and focal taxon. NGS helped recover sequences of specimens that failed a previous run of Sanger sequencing. Success rates and the optimal balance between Sanger and NGS are the most important drivers to maximise output and minimise cost in future projects. The corresponding sequence and taxonomic data can be accessed through the Barcode of Life Data System, GenBank, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the Global Genome Biodiversity Network Data Portal and the NMNH data portal.
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