Enhancing metabarcoding efficiency and ecological insights through integrated taxonomy and DNA reference barcoding:...

Area of Science:

• Marine Biology
• Ecology
• Molecular Ecology

Background:

• Metabarcoding is vital for community diversity studies but limited by reference DNA sequences.
• Beach meiofauna are crucial for coastal ecosystems but face research challenges due to taxonomic and sampling limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To improve metabarcoding efficiency for biodiversity assessment by combining DNA barcoding and morphological taxonomy.
• To investigate the impact of an enriched reference database on analyzing beach meiofauna communities.

Main Methods:

• Generated 775 new cytochrome c oxidase I DNA barcodes from meiofauna.
• Combined new barcodes with NCBI GenBank database to create an enriched reference library.
• Analyzed alpha and beta diversity in 561 metabarcoding samples using both enriched and standard databases.

Main Results:

• Achieved a 2.5-fold increase in sequence annotation and doubled species-level Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) identification with the enriched database.
• Observed a bell-shaped OTU richness curve across the intertidal zone, aligning with morphological data.
• Identified clearer community dissimilarity patterns between supralittoral and intertidal sites.

Conclusions:

• Expanding molecular reference databases is crucial for accurate biodiversity assessments.
• Integrating morphological taxonomy with molecular techniques enhances metabarcoding efficiency and ecological understanding.
• This combined approach improves the study of coastal ecosystems and their biodiversity.