Environmental DNA captures native and non-native fish community variations across the lentic and lotic systems of a megacity.

ABSTRACT: Globally, urbanization poses a major threat to terrestrial biodiversity, yet its impact on fish diversity is poorly understood, mainly because of surveying difficulties. In this study, environmental DNA metabarcoding was used to survey fish communities at 109 lentic and lotic sites across Beijing, and how environmental variables affect fish biodiversity at fine urban spatial scales was investigated. We identified 52 native and 23 non-native taxa, with lentic and lotic waters harboring both common and habitat-specific species. Water quality strongly affected native fish diversity, especially in lentic systems, but had little influence on non-native diversity. Fish diversity showed little response to urban land cover variation, but the relative sequence abundance of non-natives in lotic wate

SUBMITTER: Zhang S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8836804 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature