Uncovering floral composition of paper wasp nests (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Polistes) through DNA metabarcoding.

ABSTRACT: As the social organism, Polistes wasps build a communal nest using woody fibers with saliva for sustaining brood and adult population throughout the season. Limited information exists regarding the identification specific plant materials employed in wasp nest building. Thus, we firstly tested if the DNA metabarcoding approach utilizing rbcL and trnL molecular markers could identify the plant species quantitatively and qualitatively inform the mixed-origin woody samples. A threshold of 0.01 proportion of reads was applied for rbcL and trnL molecular markers, while this threshold for median proportion was 0.0025. In assessing taxa richness, the median proportion demonstrated superior performance, exhibiting higher taxa detection power, however, rbcL marker outperformed in quantitative analys

SUBMITTER: Mohamadzade Namin S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10838270 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature