Using metabarcoding to compare the suitability of two blood-feeding leech species for sampling mammalian diversity in North Borneo.

ABSTRACT: The application of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) for metabarcoding of mixed samples offers new opportunities in conservation biology. Recently, the successful detection of prey DNA from the guts of leeches has raised the possibility that these, and other blood-feeding invertebrates, might serve as useful samplers of mammals. Yet little is known about whether sympatric leech species differ in their feeding preferences, and whether this has a bearing on their relative suitability for monitoring local mammalian diversity. To address these questions, we collected spatially matched samples of two congeneric leech species Haemadipsa picta and Haemadipsa sumatrana from lowland rainforest in Borneo. For each species, we pooled ~500 leeches into batches of 10 individuals, performed PCR to target

SUBMITTER: Drinkwater R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7379310 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature