Detection of Endangered Aquatic Plants in Rapid Streams Using Environmental DNA

Yuta Tsukamoto,Yuji Isagi,Satoru Yonezawa,Natsu Katayama

doi:10.3389/fevo.2020.622291

Yuta Tsukamoto, Yuji Isagi + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.622291

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Abstract

Podostemaceae are a eudicot family of plants that grow on rapid streams and waterfalls. Two genera and six species of this family are distributed in Japan, all of which are threatened with extinction. It is difficult to find these species from the river side and it takes much effort to investigate their distribution. In this study, we attempted to determine the presence and absence of the Podostemaceae species by environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding. Four species of Podostemaceae were detected near four known habitats, and the detected species were in perfect agreement with the results of a past survey that was based on visual observation. The marker used in this study had sufficient resolution to distinguish all six Podostemaceae species distributed in Japan and detected multiple species growing in a site. These results show that eDNA metabarcoding can quickly detect rare aquatic plants that are difficult to find by visual observation and can provide important information regarding their conservation.

Highlights

Podostemaceae are aquatic angiosperms that live in rapid streams and waterfalls (Cook and Rutishauser, 2007; Koi et al, 2012)
H. koribanum grows in the Iwase River (IW2-IW4) in Miyazaki Prefecture, C. doianus and H. floribundum grow in the Anraku River (AR1) in Kagoshima Prefecture, H. japonicum grows in the Tomano River (TM1), and C. doianus grows in the Nakatsu River (NK2, NK3)
As a result of BLAST analysis using the trnL reference database, Six ASVs were assigned to four Podostemaceae species in Japan

Summary

Introduction

Podostemaceae are aquatic angiosperms that live in rapid streams and waterfalls (Cook and Rutishauser, 2007; Koi et al, 2012). Several studies applied the eDNA survey to aquatic plants and successfully detected the target species among collected samples in aquariums, rivers, and ponds (Scriver et al, 2015; Fujiwara et al, 2016; Matsuhashi et al, 2016; Gantz et al, 2018; Kuzmina et al, 2018; Anglès d’Auriac et al, 2019; Chase et al, 2020; Coghlan et al, 2020; Doi et al, 2020; Kuehne et al, 2020; Miyazono et al, 2020) Some of these works report the detection of some populations that had not been recorded using conventional observation (Matsuhashi et al, 2016; Kuzmina et al, 2018; Miyazono et al, 2020). Most of the previous eDNA studies of aquatic plants focused on detecting invasive alien species

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