North Atlantic deep-sea benthic biodiversity unveiled through sponge natural sampler DNA.

ABSTRACT: The deep-sea remains the biggest challenge to biodiversity exploration, and anthropogenic disturbances extend well into this realm, calling for urgent management strategies. One of the most diverse, productive, and vulnerable ecosystems in the deep sea are sponge grounds. Currently, environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is revolutionising the field of biodiversity monitoring, yet complex deep-sea benthic ecosystems remain challenging to assess even with these novel technologies. Here, we evaluate the effectiveness of whole-community metabarcoding to characterise metazoan diversity in sponge grounds across the North Atlantic by leveraging the natural eDNA sampling properties of deep-sea sponges themselves. We sampled 97 sponge tissues from four species across four North-Atlantic biogeograp

SUBMITTER: Gallego R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11333605 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature