RT Journal Article
T1 Enhancing metabarcoding efficiency and ecological insights through integrated taxonomy and DNA reference barcoding: A case study on beach meiofauna
A1 Macher, Jan Niklas
A1 Martínez, Alejandro
A1 Çakir, Sude
A1 Cholley, Pierre Etienne
A1 Christoforou, Eleni
A1 Curini Galletti, Marco
A1 Van Galen, Lotte
A1 García Cobo, Marta
A1 Jondelius, Ulf
A1 De Jong, Daphne
A1 Leasi, Francesca
A1 Lemke, Michael
A1 Rubio Lopez, Iñigo
A1 Sánchez Santos, Nuria
A1 Sørensen, Martin Vinther
A1 Todaro, M. Antonio
A1 Renema, Willem
A1 Fontaneto, Diego
AB Molecular techniques like metabarcoding, while promising for exploring diversity of communities, are often impeded by the lack of reference DNA sequences available for taxonomic annotation. Our study explores the benefits of combining targeted DNA barcoding and morphological taxonomy to improve metabarcoding efficiency, using beach meiofauna as a case study. Beaches are globally important ecosystems and are inhabited by meiofauna, microscopic animals living in the interstitial space between the sand grains, which play a key role in coastal biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics. However, research on meiofauna faces challenges due to limited taxonomic expertise and sparse sampling. We generated 775 new cytochrome c oxidase I DNA barcodes from meiofauna specimens collected along the Netherlands' west coast and combined them with the NCBI GenBank database. We analysed alpha and beta diversity in 561 metabarcoding samples from 24 North Sea beaches, a region extensively studied for meiofauna, using both the enriched reference database and the NCBI database without the additional reference barcodes. Our results show a 2.5-fold increase in sequence annotation and a doubling of species-level Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) identification when annotating the metabarcoding data with the enhanced database. Additionally, our analyses revealed a bell-shaped curve of OTU richness across the intertidal zone, aligning more closely with morphological analysis patterns, and more defined community dissimilarity patterns between supralittoral and intertidal sites. Our research highlights the importance of expanding molecular reference databases and combining morphological taxonomy with molecular techniques for biodiversity assessments, ultimately improving our understanding of coastal ecosystems.
PB Wiley
SN 1755-098X
YR 2024
FD 2024
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/118016
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/118016
LA eng
NO Macher, J.-N., Martínez, A., Çakir, S., Cholley, P.-E., Christoforou, E., Curini Galletti, M., van Galen, L., García-Cobo, M., Jondelius, U., de Jong, D., Leasi, F., Lemke, M., Rubio Lopez, I., Sánchez, N., Sørensen, M. V., Todaro, M. A., Renema, W., & Fontaneto, D. (2024). Enhancing metabarcoding efficiency and ecological insights through integrated taxonomy and DNA reference barcoding: A case study on beach meiofauna. Molecular Ecology Resources, 24, e13997. https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.13997
NO This study was funded by the Biology, Ecology, Nature (BEN) grant no. T0206/37197/2021/kg of the Stemmler-Stiftung to J-NM.
NO Stemmler Stiftung
DS Docta Complutense
RD 9 abr 2025