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Sampled localities across Taiwan (last update: September 2026)

Project in numbers

Specimens sorted	39,730
Samples sorted and sequenced	157
Individuals with high-quality sequences	5,466
Potential beetle species (OTUs)	1,543
Papers published (2021–2026)	11
New species described / in progress	45

Taiwan Leaf litter Beetles Project

Exploring the hidden diversity of beetles in Taiwanese forests

Why forest leaf litter?

The forest floor is home to an enormous diversity of insects that are keeping the forest alive - they are decomposers, predators, fungivores or parasitoids. Often, they are very tiny, some of them can be very common. The combination of tiny size, high diversity and high number of specimens makes them difficult to study - one sample of leaf litter often includes so many species and individuals that it may need weeks of work to get their basic identifications. Yet, without knowing who they are, we cannot study their biodiversity and ecology, and to understand whether and how are they involved in the life of the forest.

Many of these tiny leaf litter insects are beetles: one sample of leaf litter in Taiwan may contain up to 900 individuals of beetles belonging to 100 species. Beetles are also diverse in their diets and life styles, making them a good proxy group to understand how forest floor invertebrate community works. And they are more popular than other groups, and hence more easy in finding students to work with them and researchers to help with their identifications.

Our project aims to accumulate the basic data about diversity and distribution of leaf litter beetles in Taiwan. We sample leaf litter across Taiwan, sort out the beetles, and use DNA barcoding to find out which species live where, how they live, and how diverse and unique Taiwan's forest-floor fauna is.

⚠️ This wiki was just started: lots of information will be added soon!

Project goals

• Sample the forest floor across Taiwan: we aim at collecting at least 300 samples across Taiwan, from lowlands to high mountains, from pristine forest to plantations and city forests.
• Catalogue all beetle species found in the samples by providing:
  • cox1 DNA barcodes
  • species identification, ideally done by taxonomic experts
  • distribution
• Build up open-access DNA barcode library that will allow for a quick identification and make leaf litter beetles in Taiwan accessible for ecological or forestry studies.
• Collect basic biology data, such as larval morphology, altitudinal distribution, types of forests inhabited, etc.
• Map diversity and endemism in Taiwan by combining the data of all species.

How we work

Our workflow goes from a bag of leaf litter to DNA barcodes for every beetle:

1. Collecting – sifting forest leaf litter in the field.
2. Extracting insects – using Winkler extractors.
3. Sorting – picking out all beetles from each sample.
4. DNA extraction – using the HotShot protocol.
5. PCR amplification of the cox1 gene – two reactions per specimen (full 658 bp barcode and a shorter 407 bp fragment) to increase success rate.
6. Sequencing – pooled PCR products are sequenced directly in our lab (up to 2,500 samples at once).
7. Analysis – DNA barcodes are used to delimit species, match larvae with adults, and map where species occur.

Example: mysterious larvae with cases

Beetle larvae that live inside cases are common in leaf litter all over Taiwan, but for a long time nobody knew what they were.

• Identification: by matching larval DNA with adults, we identified them as Stenochinus (family Tenebrionidae). Only 7 rare endemic species of this genus had been reported from Taiwan.
• Species number: species delimitation revealed 11 potential species, one of which also occurs in Japan.
• Distribution: most species live at low and middle altitudes, and they are found not only in natural forests but also in secondary forests and plantations.

This shows how DNA barcoding can take a group of insects from "completely unknown" to having basic biodiversity data.

Where the data leads

By combining the data from all species, we can map:

• species diversity across Taiwan,
• endemism (species found only in Taiwan or small parts of it),
• expected diversity change by 2060, using species distribution models.

These maps can help identify areas with high richness and endemism, with practical uses such as conservation management.

Project in numbers

Specimens sorted	39,730
Samples sorted and sequenced	157
Individuals with high-quality sequences	5,466
Potential beetle species (OTUs)	1,543
Papers published (2021–2026)	11
New species described / in progress	45

Numbers as of September 2026. The project is still running – more samples will be collected and more data generated.

Get involved

Our preliminary identifications need proper taxonomic work, so we are looking for collaborators! If you work on the taxonomy of any beetle group occurring in Taiwan, please get in touch.

• Contact: Martin Fikáček – mfikacek@gmail.com
• Project website: taiwanbeetles.net

Team

Martin Fikáček, Bin-Hong Ho, Fang-Shuo Hu, Chun-Fang Chang, Chih-Chi Chen, Yu-Chieh Hsu, Chen-Wen Lin, Guan Jie Phang, Albert Damaška, Enrico Ruzzier

Institutions: National Sun Yat-sen University (Taiwan); National Museum of Natural Science (Taiwan); University of Copenhagen (Denmark); Biology Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences (Czech Republic); World Biodiversity Association (Italy)

Funding

The project is supported by the National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan (113-2621-B-110-005-MY3) and by the Czech Science Foundation (25-15506S).