Soil eDNA Biomonitoring: Assessing Efficacy for Detecting Terrestrial Vertebrate and Plant Biodiversity

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Molecular Ecology
• Conservation Biology

Background:

• Environmental DNA (eDNA) biomonitoring is growing, but soil eDNA is underused for terrestrial biodiversity.
• Conventional survey methods have limitations in terrestrial ecosystems.

Purpose of the Study:

• Evaluate soil eDNA metabarcoding performance for terrestrial vertebrate and plant biodiversity.
• Compare soil eDNA with conventional methods (camera trapping, visual surveys).
• Assess potential biases and cost-efficiency of soil eDNA.

Main Methods:

• Soil eDNA metabarcoding across five locations and two seasons.
• Comparison with camera trapping for vertebrates and visual surveys for plants.
• Analysis of species richness, taxonomic recovery, concordance, and cost-efficiency.

Main Results:

• Soil eDNA detected vertebrate species richness comparable to camera trapping, with better winter recovery.
• Plant taxonomic richness detected by soil eDNA was significantly higher than visual surveys.
• Soil eDNA showed significant concordance with camera trapping in species abundance, varying by season and traits.
• Soil eDNA metabarcoding was more cost-efficient per detected taxon than conventional methods.

Conclusions:

• Soil eDNA metabarcoding is an effective tool for terrestrial biodiversity monitoring.
• It enables simultaneous detection of diverse communities from limited soil samples.
• This method offers broad spatial and temporal coverage with significant cost-efficiency.