Environmental DNA identifies marine macrophyte contributions to Blue Carbon sediments
Type
ArticleKAUST Department
Bioscience ProgramBiological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) Division
Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)
Marine Science Program
Date
2020-08-31Submitted Date
2019-10-15Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/665040
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Estimation of marine macrophyte contribution to coastal sediments is key to understand carbon sequestration dynamics. Nevertheless, identification of macrophyte carbon is challenging. We propose environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding as a new approach for identification of sediment contributors, and compared this approach against stable isotopes—the traditional approach. eDNA metabarcoding allowed high-resolution identification of 48 macroalgae, seagrasses, and mangroves from coastal habitats. The relative eDNA contributions of macrophytes were similar to their contributions of organic carbon based on stable isotopes; however, isotopes were unreliable for taxonomical discrimination among macrophyte sources. Additionally, we experimentally found that eDNA abundance in the sediment correlates with both the DNA (84%, R2 = 0.71, p = 0.001) and the organic carbon content (76%, R2 = 0.58, p = 0.006) per macrophyte lineage. These results demonstrate the unparallel resolution of eDNA as a method for estimation of the organic carbon contribution of marine macrophytes to blue carbon stocks.Citation
Ortega, A., Geraldi, N. R., & Duarte, C. M. (2020). Environmental DNA identifies marine macrophyte contributions to Blue Carbon sediments. Limnology and Oceanography. doi:10.1002/lno.11579Sponsors
This research was funded by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology through baseline funding provided to CMD. We thank CMOR staff, R/V Thuwal crew, Andrea Anton, and members of CMD research group for help during sampling. We also thank Rubén Díaz-Rúa and Wajitha J. Raja Mohamed Sait for their help in sample processing.Publisher
WileyJournal
Limnology and OceanographyAdditional Links
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/lno.11579ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1002/lno.11579
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