Documenting the biodiversity of edible grasshoppers in South Africa with traditional knowledge, classic taxonomy and genetic information

Abstract

AbstractThe diversity of edible grasshoppers worldwide remains largely undocumented due to inconsistent reporting of ethno- and scientific species, and paucity of reference DNA sequences. This study uses traditional knowledge and scientific methods for identification of ethnospecies, taxonomic species, and phylogenetic groups that likely represent genetic species. Community members in the Limpopo province of South Africa assisted with specimen collection (n = 176) and identification of 34 ethnospecies (i.e. vernacular names given by the local communities). Scientific taxa were identified by alpha taxonomy and DNA barcode sequence queries on BOLD Systems and GenBank. Genetic groups likely representing distinct species were determined by phylogenetic analysis and intragroup p-distances. Acrididae dominated the dataset with nine subfamilies and 17 genera represented. Database queries yielded high sequence similarity/identity matches (> 95%) for only 58.6% of the sequences on BOLD and 37.1% on GenBank, thus highlighting the low representation of African Orthoptera in public repositories. Phylogenetic analysis and pairwise distances revealed 36 genetic groups likely representing distinct species. Comparison of the results obtained from the different sources of information showed incomplete overlap, and numerous inconsistencies. Despite the difficulties, the overall diversity of edible grasshoppers traditionally utilized in South Africa is higher than previously reported. This work may inform future studies for documenting edible insects in Africa and other world regions.