Abstract:

Both the species diversity and distribution pattern of the superfamily Acridoidea of the suborder Caelifera have important contributions to understanding the local biodiversity of the Baiyangdian Wetland. This research tries to study the species diversity and distribution pattern of the superfamily Acridoidea within the Baiyangdian Wetland and test the feasibility of DNA barcoding in species identification for this superfamily. Sequences of the cox1 gene were obtained from 97 individuals of 21 species of the superfamily Acridoidea. Phylogenetic, genetic distance and sequence difference threshold analyses using the Neighbor Joining (NJ), Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD) and Molecular Defined Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTU) methods, respectively, were performed for these and the 25 additional sequences of 10 species downloaded from GenBank. The results indicate that there are 34 species, 23 genera, and 6 families of the superfamily Acridoidea insects around the farmland, dam, and grassland of the Baiyangdian Wetland, including a new-record genus, Euchorthippus, and three new-record species, Euchorthippus unicolor, Atractomorpha psittacina and Oxya japonica. The DNA barcoding technology therefore is very efficient and helpful for identifying the species of the superfamily Acridoidea, although the morphological approach is still playing a key role in the species identifications.

Key words: Orthoptera, Acridoidea, Baiyangdian Wetland, diversity, DNA barcoding