Abstract
Anthropogenic pressures on aquatic systems have placed a renewed focus on biodiversity of aquatic macroinvertebrates. By combining classical taxonomy and DNA barcoding we identified 39 species of caddisflies from the Crooked River, a unique and sensitive system in the southernmost arctic watershed in British Columbia. Our records include three species never before recorded in British Columbia: Lepidostoma togatum (Lepidostomatidae), Ceraclea annulicornis (Leptoceridae), and possibly Cheumatopsyche harwoodi (Hydropsychidae). Three other specimens may represent new occurrence records and a number of other records seem to be substantial observed geographic range expansions within British Columbia.
Highlights
With accelerating anthropogenic climate change there is a renewed interest in assessing biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems (Parmesan, 2006)
Trichoptera taxonomy is primarily based on male adult morphology, which often requires experts for definitive identification
This study focused mainly on larvae to ensure that we collected caddisflies from the Crooked River only and not from nearby water bodies
Summary
With accelerating anthropogenic climate change there is a renewed interest in assessing biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems (Parmesan, 2006). Assessing insect biodiversity is a challenging, but vital, activity in the face of these changes in order to understand aquatic food webs, ecosystem services, and for use in aquatic environmental monitoring (Burgmer, Hillebrand & Pfenninger, 2007; Dobson & Frid, 2009; Cairns Jr & Pratt, 1993). DNA barcoding and the use of sequence databases, combined with classical taxonomy, can help to speed up this process by allowing rapid surveys of novel regions (Ruiter, Boyle & Zhou, 2013; DeSalle, Egan & Siddall, 2005; Jinbo, Kato & Motomi, 2011; Pauls et al, 2010; Zhou, Kjer & Morse, 2007). The Barcode Of Life Database (BOLD) currently contains DNA barcodes for more than
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