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143 results for “eDNA metabarcoding”

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dryad36/100

Data from: Fine-tuning biodiversity assessments: A framework to pair eDNA metabarcoding and morphological approaches

Accurate quantification of biodiversity can be demanding and expensive. Although environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding can facilitate biodiversity assessments through non-invasive, cost-efficient, and rapid surveys, the approach struggles to outperform traditional morphological approaches in providing reliable quantitative estimates for surveyed species (e.g., abundance and biomass). We present an integrated methodology for improving biodiversity surveys that pairs eDNA metabarcoding with morphological data, following a series of taxonomic and geographic filters. We demonstrate its power by applying it to a new spatiotemporal dataset generated on an Iberian-wide distributed aquatic mesocosm infrastructure that spans a wide biogeographic gradient. By building upon the strengths that these two approaches offer, our framework improved taxonomic resolution for 30% of the taxa and enabled species' traits (e.g., body-size) and abundance to be assigned to 85% of the taxa in hybrid datasets. These results indicate that eDNA-based assessments can complement, but not always replace, conventional approaches. Integrating conventional and modern eDNA metabarcoding approaches, already available in the ecologist's toolbox, will greatly enhance biodiversity assessments.

opencc-zeroOct 2021View details →

dryad36/100

Monitoring vertebrate biodiversity of a protected coastal wetland using eDNA metabarcoding

Monitoring plans using environmental DNA have the potential to offer a standardized and cost-efficient method to survey biodiversity in aquatic ecosystems. Among these ecosystems, coastal wetlands are key elements that serve as transition zones between marine and freshwater ecosystems and are today the target of many conservation and restoration efforts. In this sense, eDNA monitoring could provide a rapid and efficient tool for studying and generating baseline biodiversity information to guide coastal wetland management programs. Here we test an eDNA metabarcoding assay as a tool to characterize vertebrate biodiversity in one of the largest coastal wetlands of Chile, the Rio Cruces Wetland, a Ramsar designated site since 1981. We sampled surface water from 49 sites along the entire wetland. Our eDNA approach detected 91 genera of vertebrates including amphibians, fishes, mammals, and birds, as well as identified several cryptic, exotic, and endangered species. Our results also indicated that the spatial distribution of eDNA from different species is spatially structured despite the complex hydrodynamics inherent in this wetland due to the influence of daily tidal regimes. For amphibians and fishes, the number of taxa detected with eDNA was higher in the periphery of the wetland, and increased with proximity to the ocean, a pattern consistent with small-scale spatial sensitivity for some species and eDNA accumulation downstream for others. Birds and mammals showed somewhat more idiosyncratic distributions. Taken together our results add to the growing body of evidence showing eDNA can serve as a rapid cost-effective tool to characterize vertebrate communities in protected coastal wetlands, where visual surveys are difficult and animal collections are often prohibited. The use of multiple primer sets is also recommended as it facilitates the detection of ephemeral terrestrial organisms and resident aquatic organisms that make use of these wetlands.

opencc-zeroOct 2021View details →

dryad36/100

Quantitative monitoring of diverse fish communities on a large scale combining eDNA metabarcoding and qPCR

eDNA metabarcoding is an effective method for studying fish communities but allows only an estimation of relative species abundance (density / biomass). Here, we combine metabarcoding with an estimation of the total abundance of eDNA amplified by our universal marker (teleo) using a qPCR approach to infer the absolute abundance of fish species. We carried out a 2,850 km eDNA survey within the Danube catchment using a spatial integrative sampling protocol coupled with traditional electrofishing for fish biomass and density estimation. Total fish eDNA concentrations and total fish abundance were highly correlated. The correlation between eDNA concentrations per taxon and absolute specific abundance was of comparable strength when all sites were pooled and remained significant when the sites were considered separately. Furthermore, a non-linear mixed model showed that species richness was underestimated when the amount of teleo-DNA extracted from a sample was below a threshold of 0.65.106 copies of eDNA. This result, combined with the decrease in teleo-DNA concentration by several orders of magnitude with river size, highlights the need to increase sampling effort in large rivers. Our results show a comprehensive description of longitudinal changes in fish communities and underline our combined metabarcoding/qPCR approach for biomonitoring and bioassessment surveys when a rough estimate of absolute species abundance is sufficient.

opencc-zeroNov 2022View details →

zenodo36/100

Assessing a megadiverse but poorly known community of fishes in a tropical mangrove estuary through environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding

Biodiversity surveys are crucial for monitoring the status of threatened aquatic ecosystems, such as tropical estuaries and mangroves. Conventional monitoring methods are intrusive, time-consuming, substantially expensive, and often provide only rough estimates in complex habitats. An advanced monitoring approach, environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, is promising, although only few applications in tropical mangrove estuaries have been reported. In this study, we explore the advantages and limitations of an eDNA metabarcoding survey on the fish community of the Merbok Estuary (Peninsular Malaysia). COI and 12S eDNA metabarcoding assays collectively detected 178 species from 127 genera, 68 families, and 25 orders. Using this approach, significantly more species have been detected in the Merbok Estuary over the past decade (2010–2019) than in conventional surveys, including several species of conservation importance. However, we highlight three limitations: (1) in the absence of a comprehensive reference database the identities of several species are unresolved; (2) some of the previously documented specimen-based diversity was not captured by the current method, perhaps as a consequence of PCR primer specificity, and (3) the detection of non-resident species—stenohaline freshwater taxa (e.g., cyprinids, channids, osphronemids) and marine coral reef taxa (e.g., holocentrids, some syngnathids and sharks), not known to frequent estuaries, leading to the supposition that their DNA have drifted into the estuary through water movements. The community analysis revealed that fish diversity along the Merbok Estuary is not homogenous, with the upstream more diverse than further downstream. This could be due to the different landscapes or degree of anthropogenic influences along the estuary. In summary, we demonstrated the practicality of eDNA metabarcoding in assessing fish community and structure within a complex and rich tropical environment within a short sampling period. However, some limitations need to be considered and addressed to fully exploit the efficacy of this approach.

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2022View details →

dryad36/100

Combining sampling gear to optimally inventory species highlights the efficiency of eDNA metabarcoding

Biodiversity surveys may require the use of multiple types of sampling gear to maximize the efficiency of species detections, yet few studies have investigated how to optimally distribute effort among gear. In this study, we conducted eDNA metabarcoding and capture-based sampling surveys (electrofishing, fyke netting, gillnetting, and seining) to sample fish species richness in a large northern temperate lake. We evaluated the success of the sampling methods individually and in combination to determine the allocation of effort and cost across sampling gear that provides the optimal approach for lake-wide species inventories. We found that eDNA metabarcoding detected more species than any other sampling method, including 11 species that were not detected with any capture-based approach. Optimal gear combination analyses revealed that detected species richness is maximized when most of the effort or budget is allocated to eDNA metabarcoding, with smaller allocations to seining and fyke netting. eDNA metabarcoding and capture sampling gear showed similar patterns of spatial heterogeneity in the fish community across habitat types, with pelagic samples forming a group that was distinct from nearshore samples. Our results indicate that eDNA metabarcoding is a rapid and cost-efficient tool for biodiversity monitoring and that assessing the complementarity of multiple sampling types can inform the development of optimal approaches for measuring fish species richness.

opencc-zeroDec 2022View details →

dryad36/100

eDNA metabarcoding reveals high soil fungal diversity and variation in community composition among Spanish cliffs

Environments characterized by physical extremes harbor unique species diversity with particular adaptations. Cliffs are harsh environments for organisms but host a great diversity of specialized plants with many endemics, rare and even endangered species. It is, however, less known which fungal diversity the cliff habitats contain and whether it differs among different cliff locations. We thus sampled soil from three separate cliff locations in the North, Centre and South of Spain and used eDNA metabarcoding to determine fungal diversity. To better understand whether cliff specialist plants may promote particular fungal communities, we have sampled soil from crevices with cliff specialist plants and no apparent plants as controls. Major lifestyles found in cliff soils were saprotrophs, and major fungal orders were Dothideomycetes, Sordariomycetes, and Eurotiomycetes, while the amount of symbiotrophic fungi was relatively low. We found no significant differences in fungal amplicon sequence variant (ASV) richness among the three sampled locations, but the sites were significantly different in their community composition and their main indicator species. Overall, there were no significant differences in fungal ASV richness or composition between soils from cliff specialist plants and soils without plants, suggesting a unique fungal diversity in cliff soils independent from specialized plants. However, preliminary findings on soils of the specialist cliff plant Sedum dasyphyllum against control soils suggest that the presence of a specialist plant may be a relevant factor affecting the specificity of the fungal community in cliff soils. Our results indicate the existence of particular cliff fungal communities in each location, and that, despite limited and poorly developed soils and harsh conditions, cliffs can harbor a great diversity of fungal species, comparable to other ecosystems of Spain. This study points out that some fungi may be cliff-specific, shaping particular communities that mediate plant adaptations to cliffs' extreme conditions.

opencc-zeroDec 2022View details →

dryad36/100

Data from: Two for the price of one: eDNA metabarcoding reveals temporal and spatial variability of mussel and fish co-distributions in Michigan riverine systems

Freshwater mussels (family Unionidae) are among the world's most endangered taxa, with almost 75% of North American taxa classified as a species of concern, threatened, or endangered. Despite the critical importance of comprehensive distributional data for the conservation of unionids and fishes, these data are often lacking because of the labor and resources associated with traditional survey methods. During their larval stage, unionid mussels use various fish species as obligate hosts, making native fish species vital to unionid persistence and an understanding of host distribution similarly important. Here, we utilized an eDNA metabarcoding approach to evaluate patterns of co-distribution of unionid mussels and fishes along ~362 km of the densely sampled Grand River network as well as the outlets of 19 tributaries along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, USA. We detected a total of 21 mussel and 40 fish taxa, with distinctive composition of both mussel and fish assemblages across tributaries and differences in fish taxa between sampling periods. Notably, we detected more mussel taxa within the Grand River watershed than at the outlets of all 20 rivers combined. Within the Grand River network, two fish taxa (Pylodictus olivaris and Cyprinella) were found more frequently in areas of high mussel diversity, and three fish taxa more frequently in areas of low mussel diversity (Umbra, Leuciscidae, and Etheostoma). There was little difference between eDNA detections of mussels from samples collected in June versus August, but we detected significantly more fish taxa in August compared to June. Taken together, our findings demonstrate the value of eDNA metabarcoding for evaluating co-distribution of ecologically connected taxa. The use of eDNA as a tool for determining distributions of mussels and their obligate hosts may facilitate conservation efforts for these imperiled taxa.

opencc-zeroDec 2022View details →

dryad36/100

Arctic nekton uncovered by eDNA metabarcoding: diversity, potential range expansions and benthopelagic coupling

The Arctic Ocean is home to a unique fauna that is disproportionately affected by global warming but that remains under-studied. Due to their high mobility and responsiveness to global warming, cephalopods and fishes are good indicators of the reshuffling of Arctic communities. Here, we established a nekton biodiversity baseline for the Fram Strait, the only deep connection between the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean. Using universal primers for fishes (12S) and cephalopods (18S), we amplified environmental DNA (eDNA) from seawater (50–2700 m) and deep-sea sediment samples collected at the LTER HAUSGARTEN observatory. We detected twelve cephalopod and 31 fish taxa in the seawater and seven cephalopod and 28 fish taxa in the sediment, including the elusive Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus). Our data suggest three fish (Mallotus villosus, Thunnus sp. and Micromesistius poutassou) and one squid (Histioteuthis sp.) range expansions. The detection of eDNA of pelagic origin in the sediment also suggests that M. villosus, Arctozenus risso and M. poutassou as well as gonatid squids are potential contributors to the carbon flux. Continuous nekton monitoring is needed to understand the ecosystem impacts of rapid warming in the Arctic and eDNA proves to be a suitable tool for this endeavor.

opencc-zeroFeb 2023View details →

dryad36/100

Sequencing data for: Tracking climate-change induced biological invasions over 4 decades by metabarcoding archived natural eDNA samplers

In a time of unprecedented global environmental change, understanding the response of biodiversity is paramount. However, our knowledge of anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems is limited by a lack of standardized retrospective biomonitoring data. Here, we use four-decade time series of archived blue mussels to trace spatiotemporal biodiversity change in coastal ecosystems. The filter-feeding mussels can serve as natural eDNA samplers, carrying an imprint of the surrounding aquatic community at the time of sampling. By sequencing the preserved DNA, we characterize highly diverse mussel-associated communities and reconstruct the invasion trajectory of an invasive species to the detriment of native taxa uncovering repeated population collapses and reinvasions after cold winters. Time series of natural eDNA samplers provide highly resolved temporal data on community assembly and global warming-driven invasion processes and overcome critical shortfalls in our understanding of biodiversity change in the Anthropocene.

opencc-zeroJun 2023View details →

dryad36/100