Evaluation of community science monitoring with environmental DNA for marine fish species: “Fish survey project using environmental DNA”

Abstract

AbstractEnvironmental DNA is a powerful tool for community science‐based biodiversity surveys. However, the effectiveness of environmental DNA for environmental education and the time and physical costs perceived by volunteers for collecting environmental DNA remain unclear. Here, we evaluated a community science program for monitoring marine fish biodiversity using environmental DNA metabarcoding. This program aimed to investigate marine fish biodiversity in coastal areas along the Japanese archipelago. The participants were allowed to decide on the date and site to collect environmental DNA. They received a paper manual, a data sheet, and a sampling kit via a parcel delivery service. Before collecting environmental DNA, they watched a video manual for collecting environmental DNA and attended a webinar about the process and precautions for collecting environmental DNA provided by the scientists. At the sampling sites, they obtained environmental DNA samples from seawater themselves and sent the samples to the scientists via a refrigerated parcel delivery service. After collecting environmental DNA, they received fish name data from their samples and attended a webinar about survey results provided by the scientists. A cumulative total of 168 volunteers (84 pairs) participated in the program and detected 572 taxonomic groups of fish environmental DNA in the summer of 2020 and 2021. According to a questionnaire survey, more than 75% of the respondents answered that the project improved their understanding of biodiversity, marine environments, and environmental DNA. Approximately 95% of the respondents thought that environmental DNA collection work was meaningful to them. Some respondents commented on the difficulty of interpreting their fish name data, or the time and effort of selecting a sampling site. Therefore, improving the methods to communicate more information about fish name data and select sampling sites will further develop community science monitoring using environmental DNA.