Entomology Joensuu

Entomology is a branch of zoology focusing on insects. Here we present insect research currently taking place in Joensuu, Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

Insects, food webs and ecosystem restoration

Insects are all around us and they have important roles in different ecosystems. They have functional roles e.g., as pollinators, herbivores, prey, predators, parasites, and parasitoids. Insects are therefore an important group to consider when ecosystem restoration occurs. The focus in ecosystem restoration has traditionally been vegetation recovery but it is not the only aspect to restore.

We have studied butterflies in a restoration age gradient in a tropical rainforest in Uganda. By collecting lepidopteran data from both adults (fruit-feeding butterflies) as well as caterpillars and their host plants and parasitoids, we aim to illuminate the recovery patterns of fruit-feeding butterflies and plant-caterpillar-parasitoid food webs. For the latter, we utilize DNA-based methods to unravel these previously cryptic interactions featuring several highly diverse insect taxa.

Researchers: Anu Valtonen, Coen Westerduin, & Eveliina Korkiatupa

(Dark) diversity of Diptera

Jaakko Pohjoismäki’s research group is focusing on biodiversity of Diptera, using integrative DNA-based methods, where DNA barcoding data is combined with morphological identifications. A huge portion of Earth’s biodiversity is still unknown, especially within less-studied, tiny-sized, and extremely diverse taxa, such as Diptera and Hymenoptera. These “Dark taxa” are out of reach of traditional morphological methods, as they usually lack easily exploitable morphological cues. One such taxa is phorid flies (Diptera: Phoridae), which is considered to be one of the most diverse insect groups globally. Our aim is to use of DNA barcodes (COI, and a few nuclear markers) alongside morphology to shed light into this taxon and create a reliable reference library for Finnish species and provide new tools for species discovery.

We are also performing metabarcoding using Nanopore’s PromethION sequencing platform, where our aim is to test this platform’s eligibility in species inventory tasks using long-read DNA barcodes. For this project, we have collected samples across Finland using Malaise trap approach and have extracted the DNA non-destructively. As of now, the sequencing step is still on-going.

Researchers: Jaakko Pohjoismäki & Jiri Vihavainen

Biodiversity genomics

Jaakko Pohjoismäki’s research group also contributes to national and international genomics initiatives by providing samples for the production of reference genome assemblies from Finnish insects.