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| 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.
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 morphospecies:
- Collecting – sifting forest leaf litter in the field (at least 4 litres of leaf litter per sample).
- Extracting insects – using Winkler extractors.
- Sorting – picking out all beetles from each sample.
- DNA extraction using the HotShot protocol (one specimen of each morphospecies in each sample)
- PCR amplification of the cox1 gene – two reactions per specimen to increase success rate.
- Sequencing – pooled PCR products are sequenced directly in our lab
- Analysis – DNA barcodes are used to delimit species, match larvae with adults, and map where species occur.
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
Participating institutions
National Sun Yat-sen University (Taiwan)
National Museum of Natural Science
National Museum of Natural Science (Taiwan)
National University Prague (Czech Republic)
University of Copenhagen (Denmark)
Biology Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences (Czech Republic)
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).
