Insektmobilen - National citizen science and DNA metabarcoding survey of flying insects in June 2018 and 2019

The Insectmobile (Insektmobilen) is a research project at the National History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, with the goal to investigate the diversity of flying insects in Denmark. In the summer of 2018, 2019 and 2020 almost 400 volunteers collected flying insects using large custom made insect nets mounted on the roof of their cars. The bulk insect samples were processed with a non-destructive DNA extraction DNA metabarcoding protocol (dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.bmunk6ve) and sequences were assigned taxonomy by importing the fasta file into GBIF's sequence ID tool (https://www.gbif.org/tools/sequence-id). The sequences were queried against a 99% clustered version of the BOLD Public Database v2024-01-06 public data (COI-5P sequences). The dataset contains unidentified sequences and potential errors and contaminants. For example, even though the primers used were developed as universal primers targeting freshwater insects, you will find other phyla, classes etc. We share these sequences and associated data for the data to be as open as possible, but please do reannotate sequences and filter the data for your specific needs prior to using the data for analysis. Please be aware that the samples may contain gut content of sampled insects and eDNA. Sequence identification certainty is captured in the identificationRemarks field. The bit score is the required size of a sequence database in which the current match could be found just by chance. The bit score is a log2 scaled and normalized raw score. Each increase by one doubles the required database size (2bit-score). The expect value is a parameter that describes the number of hits one can "expect" to see by chance when searching a database of a particular size. It decreases exponentially as the score of the match increases. Hence, a low expect value is better. How much of the query(input) sequence aligns with the match in the the reference database, in percent. Badges representing different identity thresholds (match types); Blast exact match = identity >= 99% and queryCoverage >= 80%. This is within the threshold of the OTU, Blast ambiguous match = identity >= 99% and queryCoverage >= 80%, but there is at least one more match with similar identity, Blast close match = identity < 99% but > 90% and queryCoverage >= 80%. It is something close to the OTU, maybe the same genus, Blast weak match = there is a match, but with identity < 90% or/and queryCoverage < 80%. Depending on the quality of the sequence, bit score, identity and expect value, a higher taxon could be inferred from this, Blast no match = no match to the reference database.