Coleoptera of Canada
ZooKeys
Coleoptera of Canada
Adam J. Brunke 0
Patrice Bouchard 0
Hume B. Douglas 0
Mikko Pentinsaari
0 Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canadian National Collection of Insects , Arachnids and Nematodes, 960 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario , K1A 0C6, Canada 2 Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, 50 Stone Road East University of Guelph , Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1 , Canada
The beetle fauna of Canada was assessed, including estimates of yet unreported diversity using information from taxonomists and COI sequence clusters in a BOLD (Barcode of Life Datasystems) COI dataset comprising over 77,000 Canadian records. To date, 8302 species of Coleoptera have been recorded in Canada, a 23% increase from the first assessment in 1979. A total of 639 non-native beetle species have become established in Canada, with most species in the Staphylinidae (153 spp.), Curculionidae (107 spp.), Chrysomelidae (56 spp.) and Carabidae (55 spp.). Based on estimates from the taxonomic community and our BOLD dataset, we estimate that slightly more than 1000 beetle species remain to be reported from Canada, either as new records or undescribed species. Renewed enthusiasm toward and financial support for surveys, especially in the central and western provinces of Canada will be critical for detecting, documenting and describing these species. The Barcode of Life database is still far from comprehensive for Canadian Coleoptera but substantial progress has been made and the number of Barcode Index Numbers (BINs) (as candidate species) has reached nearly 70% of the number of species reported from Canada. Comparison of BINs to observed species in a group of Canadian Staphylinidae suggests that BINs may provide a good estimate of species diversity within the beetles. Histeridae is a diverse family in Canada that is notably underrepresented in BOLD. Families such as Mordellidae, Scraptiidae, Latridiidae, Ptiliidae and Scirtidae are poorly known taxonomically in Canada and are represented in our BOLD dataset by many more BINs than recorded species.
eol>beetles; biodiversity assessment; Biota of Canada; Coleoptera
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Campbell et al. (1979)
provided the first thorough assessment of the biology and
diversity of Canadian beetles. That important contribution, based on unpublished lists of
Canadian beetle species, was followed by two checklists of Canadian beetle species
(Bousquet 1991, Bousquet et al. 2013)
that form the foundation of the results
presented below. New Canadian records published since Bousquet et al. (2013) are listed
in Table 1 under the respective families. Beetle classification has changed significantly
over recent decades and continues to improve based on results of phylogenetic
analyses of ever-larger datasets. Generally, we follow the classification used in
Bousquet et
al. (2013)
with the following changes: Georissidae, Helophoridae and Hydrochidae
separate from Hydrophilidae
(Short and Fik??ek 2013)
; Biphyllidae and Byturidae as
Cleroidea
(Robertson et al. 2015)
; Cybocephalidae distinct from Nitidulidae
(Cline
et al. 2014)
; cerylonid series families as superfamily Coccinelloidea
(Robertson et
al. 2015)
; Murmidiidae and Euxestidae distinct from Cerylonidae
(Robertson et al.
2015)
; Teredidae distinct from Bothrideridae
(Robertson et al. 2015)
; Anamorphidae
and Mycetaeidae distinct from Endomychidae
(Robertson et al. 2015)
; Cimberididae
distinct from Nemonychidae
(Shin et al. 2018)
.
Coleopterists within the taxonomic community were asked for estimates of
undescribed and unreported Canadian beetles in their group of specialisation (contributors
listed in Acknowledgments). Estimates accounted for both unrecognised distribution
records and undescribed species, including those indicated by BINs (see below). In
cases of multiple estimates, a range was reported to show the minimum and maximum
values. We stress that these values were not intended to be precise but were included to
provide the reader with an estimate of how well each group is known taxonomically in
Canada. A dataset comprised of 77,626 Canadian Coleoptera records associated with a
BIN (Barcode Index Number,
Ratnasingham and Hebert (2013)
) in BOLD (Barcode
of Life Datasystems) was also used to estimate beetle diversity in Canada. Number of
BINs was used as a proxy for species diversity in Canada with the caveat that there will
be instances where closely related species may share a BIN or a single species may be
represented by multiple BINs. Beetle families with fewer reported species than BINs
were estimated to contain in Canada at least as many undescribed or unreported
species as BINs. Families with many more described species than BINs are considered
to be underrepresented in BOLD and would benefit from focused sequencing and
collecting effort in the future.
Canadian beetles are classified in the suborders Archostemata, Adephaga, and
Polyphaga (Table 1). Currently, 8302 species have been recorded in Canada (Table 1),
a 23% increase fro (...truncated)