The bug in a teacup-monitoring arthropod-plant associations with environmental DNA from dried plant material.

ABSTRACT: Environmental DNA analysis (eDNA) has revolutionized the field of biomonitoring in the past years. Various sources have been shown to contain eDNA of diverse organisms, for example, water, soil, gut content and plant surfaces. Here we show that dried plant material is a highly promising source for arthropod community eDNA. We designed a metabarcoding assay to enrich diverse arthropod communities while preventing amplification of plant DNA. Using this assay, we analysed various commercially produced teas and herbs. These samples recovered ecologically and taxonomically diverse arthropod communities, a total of over a thousand species in more than 20 orders, many of them specific to their host plant and its geographical origin. Atypically for eDNA, arthropod DNA in dried plants shows very hi

SUBMITTER: Krehenwinkel H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9198770 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature