How insect communities are assembled in nature remains largely unknown. In particular, whether habitat filtering or competition serves as the main mechanism in forming insect communities is rarely subject to an in-depth investigation. One bottleneck lies in the difficulty of species identification when dealing with a large number of diverse insects. However, high-throughput sequencing technology coupled with classic DNA barcoding offers a great opportunity to infer community assembly for this speciose group. In this study, using 13,909 full-length barcodes obtained by Sanger sequencing or the full-length metabarcoding method (SOAPBarcode), we showed that competition was the main assembly mechanism for the moth communities in the younger Taihang Mountain, while habitat filtering for those in the old Yanshan Mountain. The two sequencing methods showed highly consistent results with regards to both diversity composition and community assembly mechanism. Significant phylogenetic signals and structure suggested that the focal moth communities were the result of the non-neutral assembly process, which was further confirmed by results of neutral assembly test that accounted for immigration and speciation rates. Our study showed that the full-length metabarcoding method can facilitate community assembly inferences, even for speciose taxonomic groups.

中文翻译：

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使用全长元条形码和 DNA 条形码推断特定分类群的群落组装：案例研究

昆虫群落在自然界中是如何组装的，在很大程度上仍然未知。特别是栖息地过滤或竞争是形成昆虫群落的主要机制很少受到深入调查。一个瓶颈在于在处理大量不同昆虫时物种识别的难度。然而，高通量测序技术与经典 DNA 条形码相结合，为推断这一特定群体的群落组装提供了绝佳机会。在这项研究中，我们使用通过 Sanger 测序或全长元条形码方法 (SOAPBarcode) 获得的 13,909 个全长条码，表明竞争是太行山年轻飞蛾群落的主要组装机制，而栖息地过滤则是太行山飞蛾群落的主要组装机制。老燕山。两种测序方法在多样性组成和群落组装机制方面均显示出高度一致的结果。显着的系统发育信号和结构表明，焦点蛾群落是非中性组装过程的结果，这一点被中性组装测试的结果进一步证实，该结果说明了迁移和物种形成率。我们的研究表明，全长元条形码方法可以促进社区组装推断，即使对于特定的分类群也是如此。考虑到移民和物种形成率的中性组装测试结果进一步证实了这一点。我们的研究表明，全长元条形码方法可以促进社区组装推断，即使对于特定的分类群也是如此。考虑到移民和物种形成率的中性组装测试结果进一步证实了这一点。我们的研究表明，全长元条形码方法可以促进社区组装推断，即使对于特定的分类群也是如此。