DNA Barcoding and Diversity of Mammals in an Agricultural Landscape in the Northwestern Andes

Abstract

Abstract The evolutionary history of species has become relevant to understanding and explaining the composition and structure of biological communities; however, we need to identify species clearly and have a phylogenetic framework to consider such a historical perspective. This study seeks to understand the community-level patterns of mammals in Andean highland forest remnants associated to agricultural landscapes. Our methods included fieldwork to survey small terrestrial mammals, bats, and medium to large species during two sampling periods in avocado plantations in the Western Cordillera of Colombia. We implemented three approaches to identify mammal species: traditional morphological identification, DNA barcoding, and phylogenetic analyses. We also evaluated the Phylogenetic Diversity of the mammal community of this study with other assemblages in montane forests. Our fieldwork recorded 738 records of 37 mammal species included in 13 families. Our study generated sequences for 18 mammal species of Colombia and ten new DNA barcodes, highlighting the importance of producing genetic libraries for Neotropical mammals. Our phylogenetic diversity analyses show that although our study area is more species-rich than other Andean localities, it has lower phylogenetic diversity values because many mammalian lineages are absent in these transformed ecosystems. We propose expanding the use of DNA-based species identification and Phylogenetic Diversity analyses to provide an objective characterization of the communities rather than simplistic and misleading parameters such as species richness.