Biodiversity seen through the perspective of insects: 10 simple rules on methodological choices, common challenges, and experimental design for genomic studies

• DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.26661v1
• Publication Date: 2018-03-11T19:15:49Z
• Authors: Pável Matos-Maraví; Camila Duarte Ritter; Christopher J Barnes; Martin Nielsen; Urban Olsson; Niklas Wahlberg; Daniel Marquina; Ilari Sääksjärvi; Alexandre Antonelli
• Keywords: 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; 13. Climate action; 15. Life on land

The study of biodiversity within the spatiotemporal continuum of evolution, e.g., studying local communities, population dynamics, or phylogenetic diversity, has been important to properly identify and describe the current biodiversity crisis. However, it has become clear that a multi-scale approach – from the leaves of phylogenetic trees to its deepest branches – is necessary to fully comprehend, and predict, biodiversity dynamics. Massive parallel DNA sequencing opens up opportunities for bridging multiple dimensions in biodiversity research, thanks to its efficiency to recover millions of nucleotide polymorphisms, both under neutral or selective pressure. Here we aim to identify the current status, discuss the main challenges, and look into future perspectives on biodiversity genomics research focusing on insects, which arguably constitute the most diverse and ecologically important group of metazoans. We suggest 10 simple rules that every biologist could follow to 1) provide a succinct step-by-step guide and best-practices to anyone interested in biodiversity research through insect genomics, 2) review and show relevant literature to biodiversity and evolutionary research in the field of entomology, and 3) make available a perspective on biodiversity studies using insect genomics. Our compilation is targeted at researchers and students who may not yet be specialists in entomology or genomics, but plan to carry out own research in insect genomics. We foresee that the genomic revolution and its application to the study of non-model insect lineages will represent a major leap to our understanding of insect diversity, and by consequence the largest portion of Earth’s biodiversity, and its evolution in time and space.