Comparison of traditional and DNA metabarcoding samples for monitoring tropical soil arthropods (Formicidae, Collembola and Isoptera).

ABSTRACT: The soil fauna of the tropics remains one of the least known components of the biosphere. Long-term monitoring of this fauna is hampered by the lack of taxonomic expertise and funding. These obstacles may potentially be lifted with DNA metabarcoding. To validate this approach, we studied the ants, springtails and termites of 100 paired soil samples from Barro Colorado Island, Panama. The fauna was extracted with Berlese-Tullgren funnels and then either sorted with traditional taxonomy and known, individual DNA barcodes ("traditional samples") or processed with metabarcoding ("metabarcoding samples"). We detected 49 ant, 37 springtail and 34 termite species with 3.46 million reads of the COI gene, at a mean sequence length of 233 bp. Traditional identification yielded 80, 111 and 15 species

SUBMITTER: Basset Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9232565 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature