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A Concoction Pipeline for Generating Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTUs) Among Riparian and Aquatic Beetles
Published on: July 11, 2025
Observational natural history and morphological taxonomy are indispensable for future challenges in biodiversity and
Michael Staab1, Michael Ohl2, Chao-Dong Zhu3
1Chair of Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology; Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences ; University of Freiburg ; Freiburg, Germany.
Abstract:
Global biodiversity is rapidly declining, leading inevitably to a loss of ecosystem functionality when species and their associated life-history traits vanish. Unfortunately, even in the 21(st) century, a large proportion of Earth's species are yet unknown and also for most described species science lacks a deeper understanding of the functional role of species and thus of ecosystems. In this Addendum we use the recent discovery of a new spider wasp with a unique natural history as an example to emphasize the importance to conduct basic observational natural history and traditional taxonomic research. We aim to encourage such 'old-fashioned' research and biologists from various research fields to report the many fascinating phenomena holding valuable natural history information they may encounter. Such detailed knowledge on species, their life-history traits, and their trophic interactions will be crucial to reliably address the challenges global change brings to the persistence of ecosystems.
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