DNA barcoding for Nee Soon flora and fauna 
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Fig. 3. An example of a species page from the Biodiversity of Singapore website. 
in the surrounding reservoirs - with some species reaching nuisance levels (Cranston 
et al., 2013). What is remarkable is that only very few species are shared (unpublished 
data). We see similar results emerging for other taxa (Odonata, Trichoptera). However, 
a full evaluation will take some time. 
We have also carried out species discovery projects on terrestrial insect groups 
including ants, termites, fungus gnats (indicators of fungal diversity), stratiomyids 
(soldier flies), syrphids (hover flies that are pollinators), and mosquitoes. Most of 
these taxa are very species rich in Nee Soon and the fauna is again very distinct from 
other habitats for which data exists (NUS campus, mangrove fragments in Singapore). 
Particularly remarkable is the very high species diversity in fungus gnats (over 200 
species). In order to explore the diversity in so many insect groups, we relied on 
DNA barcodes. To date, we have generated more than 3000 barcodes for the fauna of 
Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest. The DNA barcodes for different specimens were 
compared and grouped based on overall similarity (3% threshold) (Meier et al., 2008; 
Srivathsan & Meier, 2012). Afterwards, one specimen for each cluster was selected 
for imaging. So far, over 500 images of Nee Soon species have been added to the 
publicly accessible database “Biodiversity of Singapore”, while the entire database 
includes over 10000 species. However, many additional species are being added every 
month. Important recent additions are images for the c. 200 species of fungus gnats. 
Most of the species are currently only known from Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest 
and many species are only known from a single specimen. Such rarity is a pervasive 
pattern of many tropical species (Lim et al., 2011). 
We also succeeded in barcoding most of the important plant species in Nee Soon 
