Department of Science and Environmental Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Taipo, N.T., Hong Kong, China.
Department of Science and Environmental Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Taipo, N.T., Hong Kong, China.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2020 Dec;161(Pt A):111707. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111707. Epub 2020 Oct 13.
Understanding the faunal community structure in the estuary would be crucial in assessing the health of the ecosystem. The poor visibility in the estuarine area due to the outflow from the Pearl River hinders the conventional visual census in assessing the megafaunal biodiversity. In this study, the fish and crustacean biodiversity of Hong Kong's western waters, i.e. the outer maritime estuary of the PRD, were studied through the metabarcoding of environmental DNA (eDNA). eDNA from the seawater and sediment samples was extracted from five sites in the region. After testing the performance of two genetic markers, amplicons of the cytochrome oxidase I, amplified by polymerase chain reaction, were subjected to Illumina high-throughput sequencing (MiSeq) analysis. A total of 22 fish species from 17 families and 34 crustacean species from 27 families were identified by blasting the sequences against the NCBI GenBank database, demonstrating segregation between samples from different sites. This study provides insight on the detail distribution of fish assembly in PRD, when compared with a previous eDNA study in the inner brackish PRD.
了解河口区的动物群落结构对于评估生态系统的健康状况至关重要。由于珠江的流出，河口地区的能见度很差，这阻碍了传统的视觉普查来评估大型动物的生物多样性。在这项研究中，通过环境 DNA（eDNA）的 metabarcoding 研究了香港西部水域（即珠三角的外海河口）的鱼类和甲壳类动物生物多样性。从该地区的五个地点提取了海水和沉积物样本中的 eDNA。在测试了两种遗传标记的性能后，通过聚合酶链反应扩增的细胞色素氧化酶 I 的扩增子进行了 Illumina 高通量测序（MiSeq）分析。通过将序列与 NCBI GenBank 数据库进行比对，共鉴定出来自 17 个科的 22 种鱼类和来自 27 个科的 34 种甲壳类动物，表明不同地点的样本之间存在分离。与之前在珠三角内咸水地区进行的一项 eDNA 研究相比，本研究深入了解了 PRD 鱼类组合的详细分布情况。
