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A dearth of data: fitting parasitoids into ecological networks

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Kirsten Miller, Professor Darren Evans

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Abstract

Studying parasitoids can provide insights into global diversity estimates, climate change impacts, and agroecosystem service provision. However, this potential remains largely untapped due to a lack of data on how parasitoids interact with other organisms. Ecological networks are a useful tool for studying and exploiting the impacts of parasitoids, but their construction is hindered by the magnitude of undescribed parasitoid species, a sparse knowledge of host ranges, and an under-representation of parasitoids within DNA-barcode databases (we estimate <5% have a barcode). Here, we advocate the use of DNA metabarcoding to construct the host–parasitoid component of multilayer networks. While the incorporation of parasitoids into network-based analyses has far ranging applications, we focus on its potential for assessing ecosystem service provision within agroecosystems.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Miller KE, Polaszek A, Evans DM

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Trends in Parasitology

Year: 2021

Volume: 37

Issue: 10

Pages: 863-874

Online publication date: 21/05/2021

Acceptance date: 21/04/2021

Date deposited: 08/06/2021

ISSN (print): 1471-4922

Publisher: Elsevier

URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pt.2021.04.012

DOI: 10.1016/j.pt.2021.04.012

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