The utility of DNA metabarcoding for studying the response of arthropod diversity and composition to land-use change in the tropics.

ABSTRACT: Metabarcoding potentially offers a rapid and cheap method of monitoring biodiversity, but real-world applications are few. We investigated its utility in studying patterns of litter arthropod diversity and composition in the tropics. We collected litter arthropods from 35 matched forest-plantation sites across Xishuangbanna, southwestern China. A new primer combination and the MiSeq platform were used to amplify and sequence a wide variety of litter arthropods using simulated and real-world communities. Quality filtered reads were clustered into 3,624 MOTUs at ≥97% similarity and the taxonomy of each MOTU was predicted. We compared diversity and compositional differences between forests and plantations (rubber and tea) for all MOTUs and for eight arthropod groups. We obtained ~100% detecti

SUBMITTER: Beng KC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4844954 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature