“Dark taxonomy”: A new protocol for overcoming the taxonomic impediments for dark taxa and broadening the taxon base for biodiversity assessment

作者：Rudolf Meier, Amrita Srivathsan, Sarah Siqueira Oliveira, Maria Isabel P. A. Balbi, Ang Y, Darren Yeo, Jostein Kjærandsen, Dalton de Souza Amorim · 发表于：Cladistics · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1111/cla.12609 · 被引用次数：31 · 研究领域：Species Distribution and Climate Change、Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies、Forest Ecology and Biodiversity Studies

We are entering the sixth mass extinction with little data for "dark taxa", although they comprise most species. Much of the neglect is due to the fact that conventional taxonomic methods struggle with handling thousands of specimens belonging to hundreds of species. We thus here propose a new strategy that we call "dark taxonomy". It addresses (i) taxonomic impediments, (ii) the lack of biodiversity baselines and (iii) the low impact of revisionary research. Taxonomic impediments are reduced by carrying out revisions at small geographic scales to keep the number of specimens low. The risk of taxonomic error is reduced by delimiting species based on two types of data. We furthermore show that dark taxonomy can yield important biodiversity baseline data by using samples obtained with biomonitoring traps. Lastly, we argue that the impact of revisionary research can be improved by publishing two papers addressing different readerships. The principles of dark taxonomy are illustrated by our taxonomic treatment of Singapore's fungus gnats (Mycetophilidae) based only on Malaise trap samples. We show that a first batch of specimens (N = 1454) contains 120 species, of which 115 are new to science, thus reducing taxonomic impediments by increasing the number of described Oriental species by 25%. Species delimitation started with using DNA barcodes to estimate the number of Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTUs) before "LIT" (Large-scale Integrative Taxonomy) was used to obtain ...