Tree of life metabarcoding can serve as a biotic benchmark for shifting baselines in urbanized estuaries.

Autor: DiBattista JD; School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Southport, QLD, 4222, Australia; Australian Museum Research Institute, Australian Museum, Sydney, NSW, 2010, Australia. Electronic address: j.dibattista@griffith.edu.au., Fowler AM; New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, Sydney Institute of Marine Science, Mosman, NSW, 2088, Australia. Electronic address: ashley.fowler@dpi.nsw.gov.au., Shalders TC; Faculty of Science and Engineering, National Marine Science Centre, Southern Cross University, Coffs Harbour, NSW, 2450, Australia. Electronic address: tanika.shalders@gmail.com., Williams RJ; New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, Fisheries (retired), Australia. Electronic address: araluenrob@hotmail.com., Wilkinson S; School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, 6012, New Zealand. Electronic address: shaunpwilkinson@gmail.com.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Environmental research [Environ Res] 2024 Oct 01; Vol. 258, pp. 119454. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Jun 19.
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.119454
Abstrakt: Urbanization of estuaries drastically changed existing shorelines and bathymetric contours, in turn modifying habitat for marine foundational species that host critical biodiversity. And yet we lack approaches to characterize a significant fraction of the biota that inhabit these ecosystems on time scales that align with rates of urbanization. Environmental DNA (or eDNA) metabarcoding that combines multiple assays targeting a broad range of taxonomic groups can provide a solution, but we need to determine whether the biological communities it detects ally with different habitats in these changing aquatic environments. In this study, we tested whether tree of life metabarcoding (ToL-metabarcoding) data extracted from filtered seawater samples correlated with four known geomorphic habitat zones across a heavily urbanized estuary (Sydney Harbour, Australia). Using this method, we substantially expanded our knowledge on the composition and spatial distribution of marine biodiversity across the tree of life in Sydney Harbour, particularly for organisms where existing records are sparse. Excluding terrestrial DNA inputs, we identified significant effects of both distance from the mouth of Sydney Harbour and geomorphic zone on biological community structure in the ToL-metabarcoding dataset (entire community), as well as in each of the taxonomic subgroups that we considered (fish, macroinvertebrates, algae and aquatic plants, bacteria). This effect appeared to be driven by taxa as a collective versus a few individual taxa, with each taxon explaining no more than 0.62% of the variation between geomorphic zones. Similarly, taxonomic richness was significantly higher within geomorphic zones with large sample sizes, but also decreased by 1% with each additional kilometer from the estuary mouth, a result consistent with a reduction in tidal inputs and available habitat in upper catchments. Based on these results, we suggest that ToL-metabarcoding can be used to benchmark biological monitoring in other urbanized estuaries globally, and in Sydney Harbour at future time points based on detection of bioindicators across the tree of life. We also suggest that robust biotic snapshots can be archived following extensive curation of taxonomic assignments that incorporates ecological affinities, supported by records from relevant and regional biodiversity repositories.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Joseph DiBattista reports financial support was provided by Australian Museum. Joseph DiBattista reports a relationship with Australian Museum that includes: employment. Shaun P. Wilkinson is a director and shareholder of Wilderlab NZ Ltd., a commercial eDNA processing laboratory. All other co-authors declare no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that influenced the work reported in this paper. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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