Abstract
Recent studies have shown that environmental DNA is found almost everywhere. Flower petal surfaces are an attractive tissue to use for investigation of the dispersal of environmental DNA in nature as they are isolated from the external environment until the bud opens and only then can the petal surface accumulate environmental DNA. Here, we performed a crowdsourced experiment, the "Ohanami Project", to obtain environmental DNA samples from petal surfaces of Cerasus × yedoensis 'Somei-yoshino' across the Japanese archipelago during spring 2015. C. × yedoensis is the most popular garden cherry species in Japan and clones of this cultivar bloom simultaneously every spring. Data collection spanned almost every prefecture and totaled 577 DNA samples from 149 collaborators. Preliminary amplicon-sequencing analysis showed the rapid attachment of environmental DNA onto the petal surfaces. Notably, we found DNA of other common plant species in samples obtained from a wide distribution; this DNA likely originated from the pollen of the Japanese cedar. Our analysis supports our belief that petal surfaces after blossoming are a promising target to reveal the dynamics of environmental DNA in nature. The success of our experiment also shows that crowdsourced environmental DNA analyses have considerable value in ecological studies.
Highlights
Recent research has shown that environmental DNA sequences are present everywhere (Rosario and Breitbart 2011)
Environmental DNA can be sampled from a wide range of targets, the petal surface of flowers is an attractive source for investigation as it enables analysis of the dispersal of environmental DNA into the emerging niche of a newly-opened flower
C. × yedoensis petal surfaces exhibit a petal effect, an adhesive quality that causes the capture of environmental DNA in the form of microbes or pollen deposited by pollinators or the wind (Feng et al 2008)
Summary
Recent research has shown that environmental DNA sequences are present everywhere (Rosario and Breitbart 2011). Environmental DNA can be sampled from a wide range of targets, the petal surface of flowers is an attractive source for investigation as it enables analysis of the dispersal of environmental DNA into the emerging niche of a newly-opened flower. The ornamental cultivar ‘Somei-yoshino’ (Cerasus × yedoensis) is the most widely cultivated cherry tree in Japan (Lindstrom 2007, Shirahata 2000), with the exception of Okinawa prefecture (Iketani et al 2007). Differences in the environmental DNA on petal surfaces of cloned plants may reflect differences in the interaction of the plants with their environments. There is very little data on environmental DNA samples from cloned plants to investigate differences among geographical locations
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