The Relationship between Genus/Species Richness and Morphological Diversity among Subfamilies of Jewel Beetles

Simple Summary Morphological diversity and species richness provide insights into biodiversity and have been studied extensively in recent years. Most researchers have found a positive correlation between these factors in many groups at the local community scale; however, this documented relationship has not always been consistent because of diverse niches and the status of an organism in a given ecosystem. Here we propose a new paradigm for the analysis of higher taxa biodiversity based on a cosmopolitan dataset to further investigate this contradiction. The morphological diversity of 1106 buprestid species from around the world was quantified based on the contours of the pronotum and elytron in dorsal view using a geometric morphometric approach. We found a positive correlation between morphological diversity and genus richness while no significance was found in the species-level test. Furthermore, the correlation between morphological diversity and genus richness is higher than it is in the species-level test. Our results demonstrate the superiority of higher taxa in biodiversity, and that the geometric morphometric approach could quite accurately reveal diversity patterns of the family Buprestidae. These conclusions complement the crucial aspect in several disciplines, including biodiversity, phylogeny and evolutionary strategy. A positive correlation between the species richness and morphological diversity of some organisms has been found in almost all studies at the local community scale. However, this documented relationship has not always been consistent because of diverse niches and the status of an organism in an ecosystem. Global taxon sampling, new morphological approaches, and consideration of more taxonomic categories other than species level are possible methods to further investigate this contradiction. In this study, we proposed a new paradigm for higher taxa biodiversity analysis based on a cosmopolitan dataset. A total of 1106 species from around the world representing all subfamilies and 33% genera of Buprestidae (jewel beetles) were selected to test the correlation between morphological diversity (MD) and genus/species richness (GR/SR) among subfamilies. The MD was quantified by the contours of the pronotum and elytron in dorsal view based on a geometric morphometric approach. The positive correlation between MD and GR was found in all test combinations, but was irrelevant in the species-level test. Interestingly, the correlation between MD and GR was higher than MD and SR in both pronotum and elytron measurements. Additionally, the MD of the pronotum is obviously higher than the MD of the elytron. Our results demonstrate that the geometric morphometric approach could quite accurately reveal diversity patterns of the family Buprestidae. Future studies on different groups, using more characters, more analyses and detailed biological interpretations, are required to fully understand the relationship between MD and SR.

Automated summary

Studies have shown a positive correlation between species richness and morphological diversity in most organisms at the local community scale, but this relationship is not always consistent due to diverse niches and the organism's status in an ecosystem. To further investigate this contradiction, global taxon sampling, new morphological approaches, and consideration of more taxonomic categories beyond the species level can be possible methods. Our study proposed a new paradigm for higher taxa biodiversity analysis, revealing a positive correlation between morphological diversity and genus richness, with genus richness showing a higher correlation than species richness.