Abstract
Ecological corridors and urban parks are created to connect habitats that become isolated due to urban development and integrate ecological, social, and cultural functions. Establishing and implementing the ecological function of urban green structures and conservation plans for urban terrestrial species requires prioritizing developing an understanding of the community structure of urban terrestrial species. However, understanding the appearance and distribution of terrestrial species in urban ecosystems is often neglected or lacking; furthermore, the inaccurate detection of species distribution can create biased estimates of species occupancy. Recently, an applied research method for detecting terrestrial species such as mammals and birds has been proposed based on molecular biology such as environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding. We installed artificial water tanks (mesocosm) in urban green spaces (Urban forests; UFs, Urban ecological corridors; UECs, Urban parks; UPs), applying eDNA metabarcoding as a tool to detect wild terrestrial species, and camera traps (CTs) and field surveys were performed in parallel to verify the results. We detected 22 urban terrestrial species only by eDNA metabarcoding and identified 43 species in total by performing eDNA metabarcoding, CTs, and field surveys in parallel. In addition, we identified 31 species of UFs, 13 species of UECs, and 28 species of UPs of urban terrestrial species using the three species survey methods in parallel. We confirmed that eDNA metabarcoding is very useful for detecting small species that are difficult to detect with the naked eye and internal species vulnerable to disturbance. However, since some species were only detected by CTs or field surveys due to DNA false-negative errors or the species’ life-history characteristics, it was judged that the species inventory can be effectively collected using several monitoring techniques.
Published Version
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