Navigating Past Oceans: Comparing Metabarcoding and Metagenomics of Marine Ancient Sediment Environmental DNA.

ABSTRACT: The condition of ancient marine ecosystems provides context for contemporary biodiversity changes in human-impacted oceans. Sequencing sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) is an emerging method for generating high-resolution biodiversity time-series data, offering insights into past ecosystems. However, few studies directly compare the two predominant sedaDNA sequencing approaches: metabarcoding and shotgun-metagenomics, and it remains unclear if these methodological differences affect diversity metrics. We compared these methods using sedaDNA from an archived marine sediment record sampled in the Skagerrak, North Sea, spanning almost 8000 years. We performed metabarcoding of a eukaryotic 18S rRNA region (V9) and sequenced 153-229 million metagenomic reads per sample. Our results show limited

SUBMITTER: Holman LE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12225701 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature