Evaluate the Biomass of Fenneropenaeus chinensis from the Southern Coast of Shandong Peninsula Using eDNA

Abstract

Fenneropenaeus chinensis is an important economic species in the north of China, and plays an important role in both marine fishing and aquaculture. Long-term overfishing has led to the rapid decline of wild F. chinensis resources. The traditional trawl survey could not meet the demands of the F. chinensis resource survey. In this study, environmental DNA (eDNA) technology was used to evaluate the biomass of F. chinensis in the traditional Qinghai (Qingdao Haiyang) fishing ground in the southern sea area of the Shandong Peninsula, with the purpose of verifying whether eDNA technology can provide a new resource assessment method for fisheries resource species such as F. chinensis. The eDNA quantitative results of the Qingdao water samples ranged from 1972 copies/L to 6937 copies/L, with an average of 4366 ±1691 copies/L. Those in Haiyang water samples ranged from 4795 copies/L to 8715 copies/L, with an average of 6737 ± 1348 copies/L. The concentration of eDNA in shrimp culture ponds ranged from 1.14 × 106 copies/L to 7.61 × 106 copies/L, with an average of 3.33 × 106 ± 2.28 × 106 copies/L. The amount of eDNA released by each gram of F. chinensis per 24 h was about 2.91 × 106 copies. According to this calculation, it was estimated that the distribution of F. chinensis was about one shrimp in every 300 m2 sea area. Similarly, it is estimated that one shrimp is distributed every 240 m2 in the Haiyang sea area. The result of this study confirms the feasibility of using eDNA to evaluate the biomass of shrimps.