Using vertebrate environmental DNA from seawater in biomonitoring of marine habitats
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Using vertebrate environmental DNA from seawater in biomonitoring of marine habitats. / Sigsgaard, Eva Egelyng; Torquato, Felipe; Frøslev, Tobias Guldberg; Moore, Alec B. M.; Sørensen, Johan Mølgård; Range, Pedro; Ben-Hamadou, Radhouane; Bach, Steffen Sanvig; Møller, Peter Rask; Thomsen, Philip Francis.
In: Conservation Biology, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2020, p. 697-710.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Using vertebrate environmental DNA from seawater in biomonitoring of marine habitats
AU - Sigsgaard, Eva Egelyng
AU - Torquato, Felipe
AU - Frøslev, Tobias Guldberg
AU - Moore, Alec B. M.
AU - Sørensen, Johan Mølgård
AU - Range, Pedro
AU - Ben-Hamadou, Radhouane
AU - Bach, Steffen Sanvig
AU - Møller, Peter Rask
AU - Thomsen, Philip Francis
N1 - © 2019 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Conservation and management of marine biodiversity depends on biomonitoring of marine habitats, but current approaches are resource-intensive and require different approaches for different organisms. Environmental DNA (eDNA) extracted from water samples is an efficient and versatile approach to detecting aquatic animals. In the ocean, eDNA composition reflects local fauna at fine spatial scales, but little is known about the effectiveness of eDNA-based monitoring of marine communities at larger scales. We investigated the potential of eDNA to characterize and distinguish marine communities at large spatial scales by comparing vertebrate species composition among marine habitats in Qatar, the Arabian Gulf (also known as the Persian Gulf), based on eDNA metabarcoding of seawater samples. We conducted species accumulation analyses to estimate how much of the vertebrate diversity we detected. We obtained eDNA sequences from a diverse assemblage of marine vertebrates, spanning 191 taxa in 73 families. These included rare and endangered species and covered 36% of the bony fish genera previously recorded in the Gulf. Sites of similar habitat type were also similar in eDNA composition. The species accumulation analyses showed that the number of sample replicates was insufficient for some sampling sites but suggested that a few hundred eDNA samples could potentially capture >90% of the marine vertebrate diversity in the study area. Our results confirm that seawater samples contain habitat-characteristic molecular signatures and that eDNA monitoring can efficiently cover vertebrate diversity at scales relevant to national and regional conservation and management.
AB - Conservation and management of marine biodiversity depends on biomonitoring of marine habitats, but current approaches are resource-intensive and require different approaches for different organisms. Environmental DNA (eDNA) extracted from water samples is an efficient and versatile approach to detecting aquatic animals. In the ocean, eDNA composition reflects local fauna at fine spatial scales, but little is known about the effectiveness of eDNA-based monitoring of marine communities at larger scales. We investigated the potential of eDNA to characterize and distinguish marine communities at large spatial scales by comparing vertebrate species composition among marine habitats in Qatar, the Arabian Gulf (also known as the Persian Gulf), based on eDNA metabarcoding of seawater samples. We conducted species accumulation analyses to estimate how much of the vertebrate diversity we detected. We obtained eDNA sequences from a diverse assemblage of marine vertebrates, spanning 191 taxa in 73 families. These included rare and endangered species and covered 36% of the bony fish genera previously recorded in the Gulf. Sites of similar habitat type were also similar in eDNA composition. The species accumulation analyses showed that the number of sample replicates was insufficient for some sampling sites but suggested that a few hundred eDNA samples could potentially capture >90% of the marine vertebrate diversity in the study area. Our results confirm that seawater samples contain habitat-characteristic molecular signatures and that eDNA monitoring can efficiently cover vertebrate diversity at scales relevant to national and regional conservation and management.
U2 - 10.1111/cobi.13437
DO - 10.1111/cobi.13437
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 31729081
VL - 34
SP - 697
EP - 710
JO - Conservation Biology
JF - Conservation Biology
SN - 0888-8892
IS - 3
ER -
ID: 238527656