Reconstructing the Holy Loch Food Web: A simple system for interpreting large numbers of Barcode of Life Database (BOLD) Biodiversity Index Numbers (BINs) for use in taxonomy, natural history and conservation, using Chironomoidea (Diptera) as a model taxon.

Neil Hammatt

Mass, low-cost-, non-destructive DNA sequencing/barcoding via UK BIOSCAN, based at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, is now creating hundreds of thousands of invertebrate Cytochrome c Oxidase sub unit 1 (COI) barcodes from specimens collected across the United Kingdom (UK). Holy Loch Nature Reserve (HLNR), in Argyll, Scotland, joined the project in 2024, and in the same year, our first 6350 DNA “barcodes” were generated and uploaded to the Barcode of Life Database (BOLD). Sequences are then organised into statistically distinct clusters which are assigned Biodiversity Index numbers (BINs). The translation of BINs into named species is then mainly dependent on well-curated specimens, with associated barcodes, on BOLD. This paper describes a method to update a locally-held HLNR BIN database, with new sequences added regularly by UK BIOSCAN, and ongoing global taxonomic revisions on BOLD. Many named species at HLNR are not located on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) distribution maps, and, given the complex, multifaceted, nonintegrated nature of the UK biodiversity recording arena, could be new species discoveries in the west of Scotland, and/or Scotland and the UK. Even more unnamed BINs are likely to be new.