High-throughput sequencing and morphology perform equally well for benthic monitoring of marine ecosystems.

ABSTRACT: Environmental diversity surveys are crucial for the bioassessment of anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems. Traditional benthic monitoring relying on morphotaxonomic inventories of macrofaunal communities is expensive, time-consuming and expertise-demanding. High-throughput sequencing of environmental DNA barcodes (metabarcoding) offers an alternative to describe biological communities. However, whether the metabarcoding approach meets the quality standards of benthic monitoring remains to be tested. Here, we compared morphological and eDNA/RNA-based inventories of metazoans from samples collected at 10 stations around a fish farm in Scotland, including near-cage and distant zones. For each of 5 replicate samples per station, we sequenced the V4 region of the 18S rRNA gene using the I

SUBMITTER: Lejzerowicz F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4564730 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature