Environmental DNA最新文献

{"title":"Of Islands on Islands: Natural Habitat Fragmentation Drives Microallopatric Differentiation in the Context of Distinct Biological Assemblages","authors":"Emma Steigerwald,&nbsp;Judith Paetsch,&nbsp;Dana Drück,&nbsp;Jana Fritsch,&nbsp;Marie Klaka,&nbsp;Matthew L. Knope,&nbsp;Susan R. Kennedy,&nbsp;Rosemary G. Gillespie,&nbsp;Henrik Krehenwinkel","doi":"10.1002/edn3.70091","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70091","url":null,"abstract":"<p>An important evolutionary hypothesis posits that much of the biodiversity we see today arose during episodes of natural habitat fragmentation through the interplay of colonization, extinction, adaptation, and speciation. To interrogate the generality of this hypothesis, we leverage the natural experiment provided by arthropod communities in kīpuka—patches of Hawaiian wet forest isolated by lava flows. With DNA metabarcoding, we provide the first simultaneous exploration of ecological and evolutionary characteristics in the kīpuka system. At both species-equivalent (3% radius OTUs) and haplotype-equivalent (zOTUs) scales, we find that richness increases with kīpuka area, and that kīpuka exhibit faster distance decay of similarity compared to continuous forest. Kīpuka also differ in OTU and zOTU composition from continuous forest, notably hosting higher proportions of non-native OTUs for an arthropod order in which we can comprehensively classify native/non-native OTUs (Araneae). These findings reveal that natural habitat fragmentation drives parallel changes at species and haplotype scales in the kīpuka system. By integrating ecological and evolutionary perspectives, our study underscores the importance of studying both processes simultaneously if we are to understand, better predict, and more intelligently manage the responses of biological communities to environmental change.</p>","PeriodicalId":52828,"journal":{"name":"Environmental DNA","volume":"7 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/edn3.70091","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143793745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Development, Validation, and Implementation of eDNA-Focused qPCR Assays to Detect and Distinguish Between Goldfish (Carassius auratus) and Prussian Carp (Carassius gibelio)","authors":"Jacob R. Hambrook,&nbsp;Nicole Kimmel,&nbsp;Rick Robinson,&nbsp;Dean Foster,&nbsp;Mark Poesch,&nbsp;Patrick C. Hanington","doi":"10.1002/edn3.70092","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70092","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The ability to accurately detect harmful aquatic invasive species in a species-specific manner is crucial to monitoring and management efforts. The Canadian province of Alberta currently harbors North America's only invasive Prussian Carp populations, in addition to invasive Goldfish populations. The ability to quickly and accurately distinguish between these phenotypically similar fish, while also determining their presence in various waterbodies, is important in tracking invasions. In this work, we develop a cytochrome B–based assay, as well as an ND2-based assay to distinguish between these two fish. The 84-bp-long CytB assay featured a limit of detection of 5.8 and 4.8 copies/sample for Prussian Carp and Goldfish, respectively, while the 95-bp-long ND2 assay featured LODs of 6.3 and 1.6 copies/sample, respectively. We demonstrate that each of these assays fails to amplify these markers in closely related fish species common to Alberta. They also fail to amplify key invasive carp species, apart from the Goldfish ND2 assay, which cross-reacts with Common Carp. We then implement these assays and find 13 Goldfish and 47 Prussian Carp environmental DNA detection events throughout the Canadian province of Alberta. Finally, we show that assays broadly agree with visual observation data gathered from various reporting mechanisms, highlighting their validity in a monitoring program.</p>","PeriodicalId":52828,"journal":{"name":"Environmental DNA","volume":"7 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/edn3.70092","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143778378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Combining eDNA Metabarcoding, Hydrology-Based Modeling and Camera Trap Datasets to Assess the Potential of River eDNA in Monitoring Terrestrial Mammals","authors":"Monika Goralczyk,&nbsp;Arnaud Lyet,&nbsp;Robin Naidoo,&nbsp;Cole Burton,&nbsp;Loïc Pellissier,&nbsp;Luca Carraro","doi":"10.1002/edn3.70089","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70089","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Global efforts aimed at safeguarding and restoring biodiversity require methods to monitor progress towards conservation objectives. Such methods should provide a systematic and robust assessment of biodiversity for the lowest cost. River environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding has been successfully applied to measure biodiversity in dendritic riverine habitats and is increasingly used to describe communities of terrestrial vertebrates in ecosystems that are challenging to survey using traditional methods. However, interpreting eDNA surveys in riverine habitats requires an understanding of the influence of eDNA transport, decay, and production on the distribution of eDNA. To this end, the hydrology-based eDITH (eDNA Integrating Transport and Hydrology) model incorporates such factors and can recover reliable spatial biodiversity patterns for aquatic taxa, but its potential to successfully model terrestrial taxa is so far unexplored. Here, we applied eDITH to eDNA metabarcoding data for terrestrial mammals collected over two mountainous catchments (575 and 745 km²) in British Columbia, Canada. We assessed prediction transferability between neighboring catchments and compared model predictions with observations from camera trapping. We found that for 9 out of 15 taxa detected by both eDNA and camera traps, predicted distributions predominantly matched observations from camera trap surveys, illustrating that eDITH can uncover patterns of mammal distribution in mountainous catchments. While lacking knowledge of actual taxon density prevents us from determining whether discrepancies stem from data limitations or complex eDNA production-density relationships, good transferability of predictions to the neighboring catchments suggests that eDNA distribution of some terrestrial and semi-aquatic mammals is partly determined by habitat preference and hydrology. Downstream sampling can recover most biodiversity across the catchment, but the inclusion of upstream samples can aid in detecting elusive species. This study underscores the broader applications of river eDNA beyond aquatic species and illustrates its potential use in addressing terrestrial mammal biodiversity monitoring objectives with tailored sampling approaches.</p>","PeriodicalId":52828,"journal":{"name":"Environmental DNA","volume":"7 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/edn3.70089","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143778376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Foraging Niche Partitioning of Three Myotis Bat Species and Marine Fish Consumption by Myotis pilosus in a Subtropical East Asian Region","authors":"Xiaodong Wei,&nbsp;Emily Shui Kei Poon,&nbsp;John Chun Ting Chung,&nbsp;David Tsz Chung Chan,&nbsp;Chung Tong Shek,&nbsp;Wing Chi Tsui,&nbsp;Huabin Zhao,&nbsp;Simon Yung Wa Sin","doi":"10.1002/edn3.70088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70088","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Most bats are insectivorous, but some species have evolved the ability to prey on fish. Although piscivory has been confirmed in the Rickett's big-footed myotis (<i>Myotis pilosus</i>), the extent of piscivory of other cohabiting <i>Myotis</i> species is uncertain. This study aims to explore the dietary niches and fish consumption of three <i>Myotis</i> species in a subtropical East Asian region, and specifically the fish diet of <i>M. pilosus</i>. Our findings reveal, for the first time, that <i>M. pilosus</i> consumes marine fishes, in contrast to previous research conducted in inland regions that suggested year-round consumption of cyprinids in freshwater habitats. We also observed seasonal variation in the diets of <i>M. pilosus</i>. It predominately hunted wide-banded hardyhead silverside [31% relative read abundance (RRA) of all 12S reads], sailfin flying fish, and shorthead anchovy during the wet season, while mainly preying upon mullets (31%) during the dry months. In more inland areas, <i>M. pilosus</i> was found to primarily feed on invasive freshwater poeciliids (13%). Furthermore, <i>M. pilosus</i> consumed more fish during the dry season, while there was a greater consumption of insects during the wet months. Most notably among our findings is the consumption of fish by two individuals of Horsfield's myotis (<i>M. horsfieldii</i>), indicating that the species is potentially piscivorous. We revealed that both <i>M. horsfieldii</i> and <i>M. pilosus</i> consumed water striders, suggesting that foraging of aquatic insects could be driving the evolution of fishing behavior. Our findings have also shed light on the flexibility of foraging behavior in piscivorous bats.</p>","PeriodicalId":52828,"journal":{"name":"Environmental DNA","volume":"7 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/edn3.70088","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143778377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Monitoring Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) Smolt Migration in a Large River System Using Environmental DNA","authors":"Louarn Fauchet,&nbsp;Martin Laporte,&nbsp;Isabeau-Caza Allard,&nbsp;Jean-Sébastien Moore,&nbsp;Nicolas Derôme,&nbsp;Julien April,&nbsp;Louis Bernatchez","doi":"10.1002/edn3.70087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70087","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Effective monitoring strategies are key for aquatic species conservation, but traditional methods often require significant resources, especially in large aquatic systems. The emergence of quantitative environmental DNA (eDNA) is a promising alternative. Yet, few studies have evaluated the possibility of quantifying Atlantic salmon abundance with eDNA when individuals are at low abundance and occur in large river systems. In this study, we tested the efficacy of eDNA to monitor and quantify daily variation in smolt counts during their downstream migration in a large river system with low abundance of smolts. During the 2021 and 2022 downstream migrations, trap nets were used to conduct a daily census of smolts in the Romaine and Puyjalon rivers (Québec, Canada) while eDNA samples were collected daily over a transect perpendicular to the riverbank. Using quantitative real-time qPCR, we showed that discharge-corrected eDNA concentrations were positively correlated with daily smolt counts for both years. In addition, we found that controlling for temperature and precipitation improved model transferability between years, showing the importance of considering environmental correlates when using eDNA for abundance quantification. Finally, smolt counts were correlated with eDNA concentrations on the same day, but not with eDNA concentrations 1 or 2 days prior, highlighting the capacity of the model to track daily fluctuations in smolt abundance. Our results underscore the potential of using eDNA to monitor Atlantic salmon in large river systems with low smolt abundance when the river hydrology and environmental conditions are documented.</p>","PeriodicalId":52828,"journal":{"name":"Environmental DNA","volume":"7 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/edn3.70087","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143749814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Challenges in Detecting Ecological Interactions Using Sedimentary Ancient DNA Data","authors":"Fiona Margaret Callahan,&nbsp;Jacky Kaiyuan Li,&nbsp;Rasmus Nielsen","doi":"10.1002/edn3.70067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70067","url":null,"abstract":"<p>With increasing availability of ancient and modern environmental DNA technology, whole-community species occurrence and abundance data over time and space is becoming more available. Sedimentary ancient DNA data can be used to infer associations between species, which can generate hypotheses about biotic interactions, a key part of ecosystem function and biodiversity science. Here, we have developed a realistic simulation to evaluate five common methods from different fields for this type of inference. We find that across all methods tested, false discovery rates of interspecies associations are high under simulation conditions where the assumptions of the methods are violated in a variety of ecologically realistic ways. Additionally, we find that for more realistic simulation scenarios, with sample sizes that are currently realistic for this type of data, models are typically unable to detect interactions better than random assignment of associations. Different methods perform differentially well depending on the number of taxa in the dataset. Some methods (SPIEC-EASI, SparCC) assume that there are large numbers of taxa in the dataset, and we find that SPIEC-EASI is highly sensitive to this assumption while SparCC is not. Additionally, we find that for many methods, default calibration can result in high false discovery rates. We find that for small numbers of species, no method consistently outperforms logistic and linear regression, indicating a need for further testing and methods development.</p>","PeriodicalId":52828,"journal":{"name":"Environmental DNA","volume":"7 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/edn3.70067","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143749813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reconstruction of Marimo Population Dynamics Over 200 Years Using Molecular Markers and Fossil Plankton Remains","authors":"Jotaro Urabe,&nbsp;Isamu Wakana,&nbsp;Hajime Ohtsuki,&nbsp;Masayuki K. Sakata,&nbsp;Yurie Otake,&nbsp;Ryotaro Ichige,&nbsp;Michinobu Kuwae,&nbsp;Toshifumi Minamoto","doi":"10.1002/edn3.70085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70085","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Recent efforts have focused on reconstructing the historical abundance of unfossilized organisms using environmental DNA preserved in sediments (sedDNA). This information is crucial for understanding long-term changes in ecosystems. However, because sedDNA is prone to degradation, its quantification may not always provide accurate estimates of past abundances. To address this issue, we developed a novel method to correct for sedDNA degradation by incorporating plankton remains and applied it to estimate the historical abundance of marimo—large spherical colonies of the green alga <i>Aegagropila brownii</i> (formerly <i>A. linnaei</i>)—in Lake Akan, Japan, which is the only known habitat for large marimo. We first quantified marimo sedDNA in lake sediments dating back over 200 years. We then used our new method to estimate historical changes in their abundance from sedDNA. Analyses revealed that marimo were historically 10–100 times more abundant than they are today, but that their abundance declined in the early 20th century when influxes of muddy water and water level fluctuations occurred due to deforestation and the operation of a hydroelectric power plant. These findings align with historical eyewitness accounts, indicating that, when corrected for degradation using fossilized remains, sedDNA can be a powerful tool for reconstructing the past abundance of unfossilized organisms.</p>","PeriodicalId":52828,"journal":{"name":"Environmental DNA","volume":"7 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/edn3.70085","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143741526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Breaking the Standard: Can Oxford Nanopore Technologies Sequencing Compete With Illumina in Protistan Amplicon Studies?","authors":"Dana Bludau,&nbsp;Guido Sieber,&nbsp;Manan Shah,&nbsp;Aman Deep,&nbsp;Jens Boenigk,&nbsp;Daniela Beisser","doi":"10.1002/edn3.70084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70084","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Advancements in sequencing technologies have revolutionized environmental research, leading to a superior understanding of ecosystem functions. In recent years, high-throughput sequencing techniques evolved from short-read Illumina sequencing to long-read Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) sequencing. While Illumina still dominates the sequencing market and offers high accuracy with low error rates, it is limited by shorter read lengths. ONT provides much longer reads, allowing for greater taxonomic resolution but at the cost of higher error rates. Since existing comparative amplicon analyses deal almost exclusively with prokaryotes, it is uncertain if ONT can serve as a reliable alternative to Illumina regarding protistic metabarcoding approaches. Therefore, this study focuses on comparing error rates, taxonomic classification accuracy, and the community composition of sequences obtained from Illumina and ONT sequencing of the 18S V9 rRNA gene region as well as the full-length 18S rRNA gene from sediment samples. In addition, the applicability of the recently updated Natrix2 amplicon processing pipeline for both sequencing approaches was evaluated. While higher error rates were observed for ONT reads, especially for short reads, the full-length ONT 18S sequences achieved greater taxonomic classification accuracy down to the species level. Illumina V9 sequencing, by contrast, provided reliable classification only down to the phylum level. An analysis of community compositions revealed significant taxonomic differences between the sequencing approaches, with ONT identifying more subtle responses of species to external influences. Nevertheless, the basic community patterns were detectable with all sequencing approaches. To conclude, this study showed for the first time that particularly full-length 18S ONT sequencing can serve as a reliable alternative to Illumina V9 sequencing for protist analysis and may even outperform Illumina depending on the specific research objectives.</p>","PeriodicalId":52828,"journal":{"name":"Environmental DNA","volume":"7 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/edn3.70084","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143726916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Water Volume, Biological and PCR Replicates Influence the Characterization of Deep-Sea Pelagic Fish Communities","authors":"Pedro A. Peres,&nbsp;Heather Bracken-Grissom","doi":"10.1002/edn3.70086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70086","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The pelagic deep sea is challenging to investigate due to logistical constraints regarding access and collection of samples; however, environmental DNA (eDNA) can potentially revolutionize our understanding of this ecosystem. Although recent advancements are being made regarding eDNA technology and autonomous underwater vehicles, no investigation has been performed to assess the impact of different experimental designs using gear found on many research vessels (i.e., CTD mounted with Niskin bottles). Here, we investigated the effects of sampled water volume, biological and PCR replicates in characterizing deep-sea pelagic biodiversity at the level of species and exact sequence variants (ESVs, representing intraspecific variation). Samples were collected at a nighttime depth of 450 m in the northern Gulf of Mexico using Niskin bottles, and we targeted the fish community using the MiFish primer (12S rRNA). Our results show that 1 L is insufficient to characterize deep-sea pelagic fish communities. The 5 L and 10 L treatments detected similar community structure (i.e., the combination of number of species and relative occurrence) and numbers of species per biological replicate; however, the 10 L treatment detected a higher total number of species, more ESVs, and a different community structure when considering ESVs. We found that five biological replicates can detect up to 80% of the number of species detected in each of the 5 L and 10 L treatments, near the saturation point. PCR replicates also had an important role in species and ESV detection, which implies increasing PCR replicates if water volume is limited. We suggest that future studies collect at least 5 L, 5 or more field replicates, and 5–10 PCR replicates to adequately investigate deep-sea pelagic biodiversity using eDNA, considering resource limitations. Our study provides guidance for future eDNA studies and a potential route to expand eDNA studies at a global scale.</p>","PeriodicalId":52828,"journal":{"name":"Environmental DNA","volume":"7 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/edn3.70086","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143726917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The First eDNA-Based Assessment at the World's Most Remote Inhabited Islands: Investigating Marine Vertebrate Diversity at Tristan da Cunha","authors":"Megan M. A. Elsmore,&nbsp;Sarah Dalesman,&nbsp;James P. Glass,&nbsp;Jéssica Escobar-Porras,&nbsp;Charles R. Treleven,&nbsp;Sarah Helyar,&nbsp;Paul W. Shaw,&nbsp;Niall J. McKeown","doi":"10.1002/edn3.70081","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70081","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Oceanic islands are among the most unique and vulnerable ecosystems in the world. Biodiversity monitoring is crucial for the sustainable management of resources; however, the isolation of many islands makes routine assessment challenging. Environmental DNA (eDNA) provides a promising approach to enhance traditional marine biodiversity assessments, reducing the logistical and financial challenges of monitoring. This study employed eDNA to characterize marine vertebrate biodiversity at the world's most remote inhabited islands of Tristan da Cunha. Two 12 s rRNA gene metabarcoding assays targeting marine fish and vertebrates were applied to seawater samples from 18 sites across the archipelago. This multi-assay approach detected 51 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) encompassing 24 families, 28 genera, and 13 species. Comparison with existing results from traditional survey methods (SCUBA, pelagic BRUVS, and deep-water camera drops) and fisheries by-catch showed eDNA to successfully resolve the islands characteristic diversity profile. In addition, eDNA reported rare and vulnerable taxa underrepresented by the traditional surveys and detected species previously unrecorded at the islands. eDNA resolved greater species richness in kelp versus non-kelp habitats. Dominant Tristanian taxa had the highest number of reads, adding to evidence linking reads and abundance. eDNA detection was robust to sampling technique, volume filtered, time between collection, filtration, and sequencing of samples, demonstrating the effectiveness of this technique for use in challenging remote locations. Community composition varied significantly between metabarcoding assays, with unique OTUs detected by each marker, highlighting the importance of assay selection for capturing the full depth and breadth of diversity. 23%–40% of OTUs were resolved to species level, emphasizing the need for the expansion of taxonomic and sequence databases for this region. The study demonstrates the potential of eDNA as a high-resolution tool that can provide new insights into biodiversity around Tristan and can be operationalized to monitor future changes at these isolated islands.</p>","PeriodicalId":52828,"journal":{"name":"Environmental DNA","volume":"7 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/edn3.70081","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143698918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}