Biodiversity assessment of tropical shelf eukaryotic communities via pelagic eDNA metabarcoding

Bakker, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7163-6565, Wangensteen Fuentes, OS ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5593-348X, Baillie, CJP, Buddo, D, Chapman, DD, Gallagher, AJ, Guttridge, TL, Hertler, H and Mariani, S ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5329-0553 2019, 'Biodiversity assessment of tropical shelf eukaryotic communities via pelagic eDNA metabarcoding' , Ecology and Evolution, 9 (24) , pp. 14341-14355.

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Abstract

Our understanding of marine communities and their functions in an ecosystem relies on the ability to detect and monitor species distributions and abundances. Currently, the use of environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is increasingly being applied for the rapid assessment and monitoring of aquatic species. Most eDNA metabarcoding studies have either focussed on the simultaneous identification of a few specific taxa/groups or have been limited in geographical scope. Here, we employed eDNA metabarcoding to compare beta diversity patterns of complex pelagic marine communities in tropical coastal shelf habitats spanning the whole Caribbean Sea. We screened 68 water samples using a universal eukaryotic COI barcode region and detected highly diverse communities, which varied significantly among locations, and proved good descriptors of habitat type and environmental conditions. Less than 15% of eukaryotic taxa were assigned to metazoans, most DNA sequences belonged to a variety of planktonic “protists,” with over 50% of taxa unassigned at the phylum level, suggesting that the sampled communities host an astonishing amount of micro‐eukaryotic diversity yet undescribed or absent from COI reference databases. Although such a predominance of micro‐eukaryotes severely reduces the efficiency of universal COI markers to investigate vertebrate and other metazoans from aqueous eDNA, the study contributes to the advancement of rapid biomonitoring methods and brings us closer to a full inventory of extant marine biodiversity.

Item Type: Article
Schools: Schools > School of Environment and Life Sciences
Journal or Publication Title: Ecology and Evolution
Publisher: Wiley
ISSN: 2045-7758
Related URLs:
Funders: Pew Charitable Trusts, Beneath the Waves, Virgin Unite, University of Salford
Depositing User: USIR Admin
Date Deposited: 14 Jan 2020 16:12
Last Modified: 16 Feb 2022 03:49
URI: https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/56219

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