First assessment of the biodiversity of praying mantises (Insecta: Mantodea) in Cameroon with DNA barcoding

RESEARCH ARTICLE First assessment of the biodiversity of praying mantises (Insecta: Mantodea) in Cameroon with DNA barcoding Valeriy GovorovID1,2*, Evgeny ShcherbakovID3, Petr Jansˇta1, Barbora Černa´ Bolfikova´ ID2 1 Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, 2 Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Prague, Czech Republic, 3 Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia * valeriy.govorov@natur.cuni.cz Abstract Praying mantises are the apex insect predators in many ecosystems, nevertheless they receive relatively less recognition in biodiversity reviews. We report a first survey of diversity of praying mantises in Cameroon, which is situated in the Congo Basin region, one of the richest biodiversity hotspots. Combination of light trapping with manual collecting resulted in 495 specimens representing 62 species. A total of eight species are novel for the country, at least five species are likely undescribed. DNA barcodes of 72 specimens representing every collected species were obtained, curated, and submitted to NCBI database. For eight species, barcodes are published for the first time. A maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree was created using all available barcodes of Mantodea of Central African subregion. The results obtained during this study stress the importance of combining traditional and molecu- lar approaches during biodiversity assessments of often neglected taxa, the latter aiding in

uncovering new species, resolving unknown morphological divergencies and assigning conspecifics. Introduction Mantodea is an order of predatory insects, currently consisting of about 2500 valid species in 29 families [1]. Praying mantises are widely distributed around the world, however, the highest diversity is accumulated in tropical regions, such as the rainforests of Equatorial Africa. Rich diversity is most likely connected to the Congo Basin forests of Central Africa, the world’s sec- ond largest contiguous zone of lowland tropical moist broadleaf forests surpassed only by Amazon basin [2]. The Congo Basin forests account for roughly 20% of the world’s remaining tropical rainforest [3, 4], as well as 70% of the continent’s total plant cover [5, 6] and remain relatively undisturbed. They host a substantial percentage of worldwide biodiversity, as well as represent an irreplaceable part of climate regulation. Despite seeming immenseness, Congo Basin forests are vulnerable to global changes in climate, which are predicted to have a major impact on the region’s biota. Although it has been claimed that Congo Basin forests are partic- ularly resistant to severe drought [7], recent research reveals that a persistent drying trend will PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304163 May 23, 2024 1 / 23 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Govorov V, Shcherbakov E, Jansˇta P, Černa´ Bolfikova´ B (2024) First assessment of the biodiversity of praying mantises (Insecta: Mantodea) in Cameroon with DNA barcoding.

PLoS ONE 19(5): e0304163. https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0304163 Editor: James Lee Crainey, Instituto Leonidas e Maria Deane Fiocruz Amazonia, BRAZIL Received: February 27, 2024 Accepted: May 7, 2024 Published: May 23, 2024 Copyright: © 2024 Govorov et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: DNA data is available at NCBI databases under accession numbers OR820652 - OR820723. Funding: This work was supported by grants of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic no. SVV 266686/2024, of the PRIMUS Research Programme (Charles University, no. PRIMUS/24/SCI/015) (both for VG and PJ) and by Internal grant of Czech University of Life Sciences (IGA 202331040) to BČB. There was no additional external funding received for this