scholarly journals COI metabarcoding primer choice affects richness and recovery of indicator taxa in freshwater systems

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehrdad Hajibabaei ◽  
Teresita M. Porter ◽  
Michael Wright ◽  
Josip Rudar

AbstractDNA-based biodiversity analysis has gained major attention due to the use of high throughput sequencing technology in approaches such as mixed community or environmental DNA metabarcoding. Many cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) primer sets are now available for such work. The purpose of this study is to look at how COI primer choice affects the recovery of arthropod richness, beta diversity, and recovery of site indicator taxa in benthos kick-net samples typically used in freshwater biomonitoring. We examine 6 commonly used COI primer sets, on samples collected from 6 freshwater sites. Richness is sensitive to primer choice and the combined use of additional multiple COI amplicons recovers higher richness. Thus, to recover maximum richness, multiple primer sets should be used with COI metabarcoding. Samples consistently cluster by site regardless of amplicon choice or PCR replicate. Thus, for broadscale community analyses, overall beta diversity patterns are robust to COI marker choice. Additionally, the recovery of traditional freshwater bioindicator assemblages such as Ephemeroptera, Trichoptera, Plectoptera, and Diptera may not fully capture the diversity of broadscale arthropod site indicators that can be recovered from COI metabarcoding. Based on these results, studies that use different COI amplicons may not be directly comparable. This work will help future biodiversity and biomonitoring studies develop not just standardized, but optimized workflows that maximize taxon-detection or order taxa along gradients.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shunsuke Matsuoka ◽  
Yoriko Sugiyama ◽  
Mariko Nagano ◽  
Hideyuki Doi

Background: Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is a rapidly expanding technique for efficient biodiversity monitoring, especially of animals. Recently, the usefulness of aquatic eDNA in monitoring the diversity of both terrestrial and aquatic fungi has been suggested. In eDNA studies, different experimental factors, such as DNA extraction kits or methods, can affect the subsequent analyses and the results of DNA metabarcoding. However, few methodological studies have been carried out on eDNA of fungi, and little is known about how experimental procedures can affect the results of biodiversity analysis. In this study, we focused on the effect of the DNA extraction method on fungal DNA metabarcoding using freshwater samples obtained from rivers and lakes. Methods: DNA was extracted from freshwater samples using the DNeasy PowerSoil kit, which is mainly used to extract microbial DNA from soil, and the DNeasy Blood & Tissue kit, which is commonly used for eDNA studies on animals. We then compared PCR inhibition and fungal DNA metabarcoding results [i.e., operational taxonomic unit (OTU) number and composition] of the extracted samples. Results: No PCR inhibition was detected in any of the samples, and no significant differences in the number of OTUs and OTU compositions were detected between the samples processed using different kits. These results indicate that both DNA extraction kits may provide similar diversity results for the river and lake samples evaluated in this study. Therefore, it may be possible to evaluate the diversity of fungi using a unified experimental method, even with samples obtained for diversity studies on other taxa such as those of animals.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Valsecchi ◽  
Jonas Bylemans ◽  
Simon J. Goodman ◽  
Roberto Lombardi ◽  
Ian Carr ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTMetabarcoding studies using environmental DNA (eDNA) and high throughput sequencing (HTS) are rapidly becoming an important tool for assessing and monitoring marine biodiversity, detecting invasive species, and supporting basic ecological research. Several barcode loci targeting teleost fish and elasmobranchs have previously been developed, but to date primer sets focusing on other marine megafauna, such as marine mammals have received less attention. Similarly, there have been few attempts to identify potentially ‘universal’ barcode loci which may be informative across multiple marine vertebrate Orders. Here we describe the design and validation of four new sets of primers targeting hypervariable regions of the vertebrate mitochondrial 12S and 16S rRNA genes, which have conserved priming sites across virtually all cetaceans, pinnipeds, elasmobranchs, boney fish, sea turtles and birds, and amplify fragments with consistently high levels of taxonomically diagnostic sequence variation. ‘In silico’ validation using the OBITOOLS software showed our new barcode loci outperformed most existing vertebrate barcode loci for taxon detection and resolution. We also evaluated sequence diversity and taxonomic resolution of the new barcode loci in 680 complete marine mammal mitochondrial genomes demonstrating that they are effective at resolving amplicons for most taxa to the species level. Finally, we evaluated the performance of the primer sets with eDNA samples from aquarium communities with known species composition. These new primers will potentially allow surveys of complete marine vertebrate communities in single HTS metabarcoding assessments, simplifying workflows, reducing costs, and increasing accessibility to a wider range of investigators.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasco Elbrecht ◽  
Dirk Steinke

The viability of DNA metabarcoding for assessment of freshwater macrozoobenthos has been demonstrated over the past years. It matured to a stage where it can be applied to monitoring at a large scale, keeping pace with increased high throughput sequencing (HTS) capacity. However, workflows and sample tagging need to be optimized to accommodate for hundreds of samples within a single sequencing run. We here conceptualize a streamlined metabarcoding workflow, in which samples are processed in 96-well plates. Each sample is replicated starting with tissue extraction. Negative and positive controls are included to ensure data reliability. With our newly developed fusion primer sets for the BF2+BR2 primer pair up to three 96-well plates (288 wells) can be uniquely tagged for a single Illumina sequencing run. By including Illumina indices tagging can be extended to thousands of samples. We hope that our metabarcoding workflow will be used as a practical guide for future large-scale biodiversity assessments involving freshwater invertebrates. However, we also want to point out that this is just one approach, and that we hope this article will stimulate discussion and publication of alternatives and extensions.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasco Elbrecht ◽  
Dirk Steinke

The viability of DNA metabarcoding for assessment of freshwater macrozoobenthos has been demonstrated over the past years. It matured to a stage where it can be applied to monitoring at a large scale, keeping pace with increased high throughput sequencing (HTS) capacity. However, workflows and sample tagging need to be optimized to accommodate for hundreds of samples within a single sequencing run. We here conceptualize a streamlined metabarcoding workflow, in which samples are processed in 96-well plates. Each sample is replicated starting with tissue extraction. Negative and positive controls are included to ensure data reliability. With our newly developed fusion primer sets for the BF2+BR2 primer pair up to three 96-well plates (288 wells) can be uniquely tagged for a single Illumina sequencing run. By including Illumina indices tagging can be extended to thousands of samples. We hope that our metabarcoding workflow will be used as a practical guide for future large-scale biodiversity assessments involving freshwater invertebrates. However, we also want to point out that this is just one approach, and that we hope this article will stimulate discussion and publication of alternatives and extensions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Wang ◽  
Ping Liu ◽  
Jiang Chang ◽  
Cheng Li ◽  
Feng Xie ◽  
...  

Abstract Due to the overexploitation of farming, as well as habitat loss or degradation, the wild population of Chinese giant salamander Andrias davidianus (CGS), a species with seven genetically distinct lineages, has decreased by over 80% in the past 70 years. Traditional survey methods have proven to be unsuitable for finding this rare and elusive species. We evaluated the efficacy of environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling to detect CGS indirectly from its aquatic environment. We developed several species-specific primer sets; validated their specificity and sensitivity; and assessed their utility in silico, in the laboratory, and in two field sites having released farm-bred CGSs. We detected the presence of CGS DNA by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and Sanger sequencing. We also sequenced an amplicon mixture of seven haplotype-represented samples using high-throughput sequencing. Our eDNA methods could detect the presence of CGS at moderate densities reported across its range, proving them as a cost-effective way to establish broad-scale patterns of occupancy for CGS. In addition, our primers enabled the detection of a mitochondrial lineage mixture or introduced individuals from geographically isolated populations of CGS.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasco Elbrecht ◽  
Dirk Steinke

The viability of DNA metabarcoding for assessment of freshwater macrozoobenthos has been demonstrated over the past years. It matured to a stage where it can be applied to monitoring at a large scale, keeping pace with increased high throughput sequencing (HTS) capacity. However, workflows and sample tagging need to be optimized to accommodate for hundreds of samples within a single sequencing run. We here conceptualize a streamlined metabarcoding workflow, in which samples are processed in 96-well plates. Each sample is replicated starting with tissue extraction. Negative and positive controls are included to ensure data reliability. With our newly developed fusion primer sets for the BF2+BR2 primer pair up to three 96-well plates (288 wells) can be uniquely tagged for a single Illumina sequencing run. By including Illumina indices, tagging can be extended to thousands of samples. We hope that our metabarcoding workflow will be used as a practical guide for future large-scale biodiversity assessments involving freshwater invertebrates. However, we also want to point out that this is just one possible metabarcoding approach, and that we hope this article will stimulate discussion and publication of alternatives and extensions.


Author(s):  
Vasco Elbrecht ◽  
Dirk Steinke

The viability of DNA metabarcoding for assessment of freshwater macrozoobenthos has been demonstrated over the past years. It matured to a stage where it can be applied to monitoring at a large scale, keeping pace with increased high throughput sequencing (HTS) capacity. However, workflows and sample tagging need to be optimized to accommodate for hundreds of samples within a single sequencing run. We here conceptualize a streamlined metabarcoding workflow, in which samples are processed in 96-well plates. Each sample is replicated starting with tissue extraction. Negative and positive controls are included to ensure data reliability. With our newly developed fusion primer sets for the BF2+BR2 primer pair up to three 96-well plates (288 wells) can be uniquely tagged for a single Illumina sequencing run. By including Illumina indices, tagging can be extended to thousands of samples. We hope that our metabarcoding workflow will be used as a practical guide for future large-scale biodiversity assessments involving freshwater invertebrates. However, we also want to point out that this is just one possible metabarcoding approach, and that we hope this article will stimulate discussion and publication of alternatives and extensions.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasco Elbrecht ◽  
Dirk Steinke

The viability of DNA metabarcoding for assessment of freshwater macrozoobenthos has been demonstrated over the past years. It matured to a stage where it can be applied to monitoring at a large scale, keeping pace with increased high throughput sequencing (HTS) capacity. However, workflows and sample tagging need to be optimized to accommodate for hundreds of samples within a single sequencing run. We here conceptualize a streamlined metabarcoding workflow, in which samples are processed in 96-well plates. Each sample is replicated starting with tissue extraction. Negative and positive controls are included to ensure data reliability. With our newly developed fusion primer sets for the BF2+BR2 primer pair up to three 96-well plates (288 wells) can be uniquely tagged for a single Illumina sequencing run. By including Illumina indices, tagging can be extended to thousands of samples. We hope that our metabarcoding workflow will be used as a practical guide for future large-scale biodiversity assessments involving freshwater invertebrates. However, we also want to point out that this is just one possible metabarcoding approach, and that we hope this article will stimulate discussion and publication of alternatives and extensions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynsey R Harper ◽  
Matthew L Niemiller ◽  
Joseph Benito ◽  
Lauren E Paddock ◽  
E Knittle ◽  
...  

Pollinators are imperiled by global declines that can impair plant reproduction, erode essential ecosystem services and resilience, and drive economic losses. Monitoring pollinator biodiversity trends is key for adaptive conservation and management, but conventional surveys are often costly, time consuming, and require taxonomic expertise. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding surveys are booming due to their rapidity, non-invasiveness, and cost efficiency. Microfluidic technology allows multiple primer sets from different markers to be used in eDNA metabarcoding for more comprehensive species inventories whilst minimizing biases associated with individual primer sets. We evaluated microfluidic eDNA metabarcoding for pollinator community monitoring by introducing a bumblebee colony to a greenhouse flower assemblage and sampling natural flower plots. We collected nectar draws, flower swabs, or whole flower heads from four flowering species, including two occurring in both the greenhouse and field. Samples were processed using two eDNA isolation protocols before amplification with 15 primer sets for two markers (COI and 16S). Microfluidic eDNA metabarcoding detected the target bumblebee and greenhouse insects as well as common regional arthropods. Pollinator detection was maximized using whole flower heads preserved in ATL buffer and extracted with a modified Qiagen DNeasy protocol for amplification with COI primers. eDNA surveillance could enhance pollinator assessment by detecting protected and endangered species and being more applicable to remote, inaccessible locations, whilst reducing survey time, effort, and expense. Microfluidic eDNA metabarcoding requires optimization but shows promise in revealing complex networks underpinning critical ecosystem functions and services, enabling more accurate assessments of ecosystem resilience.


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