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Capturing open ocean biodiversity: comparing environmental DNA metabarcoding to the continuous plankton recorder
Citation
Suter, L and Polanowski, AM and Clarke, LJ and Kitchener, LA and Deagle, BE, Capturing open ocean biodiversity: comparing environmental DNA metabarcoding to the continuous plankton recorder, Molecular Ecology pp. 1-15. ISSN 0962-1083 (2020) [Refereed Article]
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Abstract
Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is emerging as a novel, objective tool for monitoring marine metazoan biodiversity. Zooplankton biodiversity in the vast open ocean is currently monitored through continuous plankton recorder (CPR) surveys, using ship‐based bulk plankton sampling and morphological identification. We assessed whether eDNA metabarcoding (2 L filtered seawater) could capture similar Southern Ocean zooplankton biodiversity as conventional CPR bulk sampling (~1,500 L filtered seawater per CPR sample). We directly compared eDNA metabarcoding with (a) conventional morphological CPR sampling and (b) bulk DNA metabarcoding of CPR collected plankton (two transects for each comparison, 40 and 44 paired samples, respectively). A metazoan‐targeted cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) marker was used to characterize species‐level diversity. In the 2 L seawater eDNA samples, this marker amplified large amounts of non‐metazoan picoplanktonic algae, but eDNA metabarcoding still detected up to 1.6 times more zooplankton species than morphologically analysed bulk CPR samples. COI metabarcoding of bulk DNA samples mostly avoided nonmetazoan amplifications and recovered more zooplankton species than eDNA metabarcoding. However, eDNA metabarcoding detected roughly two thirds of metazoan species and identified similar taxa contributing to community differentiation across the subtropical front separating transects. We observed a diurnal pattern in eDNA data for copepods which perform diel vertical migrations, indicating a surprisingly short temporal eDNA signal. Compared to COI, a eukaryote‐targeted 18S ribosomal RNA marker detected a higher proportion, but lower diversity, of metazoans in eDNA. With refinement and standardization of methodology, eDNA metabarcoding could become an efficient tool for monitoring open ocean biodiversity.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | biodiversity, biomonitoring, continuous plankton recorder, environmental DNA, metabarcoding, open ocean |
| Research Division: | Biological Sciences |
| Research Group: | Ecology |
| Research Field: | Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) |
| Objective Division: | Environmental Management |
| Objective Group: | Marine systems and management |
| Objective Field: | Marine biodiversity |
| UTAS Author: | Clarke, LJ (Dr Laurence Clarke) |
| ID Code: | 142798 |
| Year Published: | 2020 |
| Deposited By: | Ecology and Biodiversity |
| Deposited On: | 2021-02-11 |
| Last Modified: | 2021-02-24 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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