Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, DiSTeBA, University of Salento, Via Monteroni 165, 73100, Lecce, Italy.
NBFC, National Biodiversity Future Center, 90133, Palermo, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2024 Aug 2;14(1):17890. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-69043-w.
Transitional waters are important habitats both for biodiversity and ecological functions, providing valuable natural resources and relevant ecosystem services. However, they are highly susceptible to climate changes and anthropogenic pressures responsible for biodiversity losses and require specific biomonitoring programs. Benthic macroinvertebrates are suitable as ecological indicators of transitional waters, being affected by biological, chemical, and physical conditions of the ecosystems about their life cycles and space-use behaviour. The advent of high-throughput sequencing technologies has allowed biodiversity investigations, at the molecular level, in multiple ecosystems and for different ecological guilds. Benthic macroinvertebrate communities' composition has been investigated, at the molecular level, mainly through DNA extracted from sediments in marine and riverine ecosystems. In this work, benthic macroinvertebrate communities are explored through eDNA metabarcoding from water samples in a Mediterranean transitional water ecosystem. This research highlighted the validity of eDNA metabarcoding as an efficient tool for the assessment of benthic macroinvertebrate community structure in transitional waters, unveiling the spatial heterogeneity of benthic macroinvertebrate communities correlated to the measured environmental gradients. The results suggest that peculiar features of transitional water ecosystems, such as shallow waters and limited currents, facilitate the assessment of benthic macroinvertebrate communities through environmental DNA analysis from surface water samples, opening for more rapid and accurate monitoring programs for these valuable ecosystems.
过渡水域是生物多样性和生态功能的重要栖息地，提供了有价值的自然资源和相关生态系统服务。然而，它们极易受到气候变化和人为压力的影响，这些因素导致了生物多样性的丧失，因此需要特定的生物监测计划。底栖大型无脊椎动物是过渡水域生态指示物的合适选择，因为它们的生命周期和空间利用行为受到生态系统的生物、化学和物理条件的影响。高通量测序技术的出现使得在多个生态系统和不同生态类群中，可以在分子水平上进行生物多样性调查。已经在分子水平上研究了底栖大型无脊椎动物群落的组成，主要是通过从海洋和河流生态系统的沉积物中提取的 DNA 进行研究。在这项工作中，通过对地中海过渡水域生态系统水样的 eDNA 宏条形码分析来探索底栖大型无脊椎动物群落。这项研究强调了 eDNA 宏条形码作为评估过渡水域底栖大型无脊椎动物群落结构的有效工具的有效性，揭示了与测量的环境梯度相关的底栖大型无脊椎动物群落的空间异质性。研究结果表明，过渡水域生态系统的特有特征，如浅水和有限的水流，使得通过对地表水样本进行环境 DNA 分析来评估底栖大型无脊椎动物群落成为可能，为这些有价值的生态系统提供了更快速、更准确的监测计划。
