Abstract
Monitoring biodiversity is of increasing importance in natural ecosystems. Metabarcoding can be used as a powerful molecular tool to complement traditional biodiversity monitoring, as total environmental DNA can be analyzed from complex samples containing DNA of different origin. The aim of this research was to demonstrate the potential of pollen DNA metabarcoding using the chloroplast trnL partial gene sequencing to characterize plant biodiversity. Collecting airborne biological particles with gravimetric Tauber traps in four Natura 2000 habitats within the Natural Park of Paneveggio Pale di San Martino (Italian Alps), at three-time intervals in 1 year, metabarcoding identified 68 taxa belonging to 32 local plant families. Metabarcoding could identify with finer taxonomic resolution almost all non-rare families found by conventional light microscopy concurrently applied. However, compared to microscopy quantitative results, Poaceae, Betulaceae, and Oleaceae were found to contribute to a lesser extent to the plant biodiversity and Pinaceae were more represented. Temporal changes detected by metabarcoding matched the features of each pollen season, as defined by aerobiological studies running in parallel, and spatial heterogeneity was revealed between sites. Our results showcase that pollen metabarcoding is a promising approach in detecting plant species composition which could provide support to continuous monitoring required in Natura 2000 habitats for biodiversity conservation.
Highlights
Monitoring biodiversity in natural ecosystems, and in protected areas, is becoming of increasing importance in ecological research to document the consequences of the recognized biodiversity loss of the last decades[1,2]
Pollen assemblages are analyzed via light microscopy based on pollen morphology[11]
This study, following recently optimized protocols[12], aimed to demonstrate the potential of pollen DNA metabarcoding, using trnL partial gene high throughput sequencing, to characterize and monitor plant biodiversity in protected areas, and to be used as a tool to inform efforts related to biodiversity conservation of species and habitats in a long-term perspective
Summary
Monitoring biodiversity in natural ecosystems, and in protected areas (e.g. the European network Natura 2000), is becoming of increasing importance in ecological research to document the consequences of the recognized biodiversity loss of the last decades[1,2]. HTS can quickly produce a massive amount of DNA sequences with e ase[23], and increasingly accessible DNA reference databases facilitate taxonomic assignment to single (barcoding) or multiple (metabarcoding) species[24,25] Environmental samples, such as air samples, can undergo degradation[26] and short markers are used 3. This study, following recently optimized protocols[12], aimed to demonstrate the potential of pollen DNA metabarcoding, using trnL partial gene high throughput sequencing, to characterize and monitor plant biodiversity in protected areas, (e.g. the European ecological network Natura 2000) and to be used as a tool to inform efforts related to biodiversity conservation of species and habitats in a long-term perspective. The study included 18 sampling points along an altitudinal gradient (Table 1) and the sampling covered a 1-year time span: October 2014–March 2015, March–July 2015 and July–October 2015
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