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Review article2018Peer reviewedOpen access

The future of biotic indices in the ecogenomic era: Integrating (e) DNA metabarcoding in biological assessment of aquatic ecosystems

Pawlowski, Jan; Kelly-Quinn, Mary; Altermatt, Florian; Apotheloz-Perret-Gentil, Laure; Beja, Pedro; Boggero, Angela; Borja, Angel; Bouchez, Agnes; Cordier, Tristan; Domaizon, Isabelle; Feio, Maria Joao; Filipe, Ana Filipa; Fornaroli, Riccardo; Graf, Wolfram; Herder, Jelger; van der Hoorn, Berry; Jones, J. Iwan; Sagova-Mareckova, Marketa; Moritz, Christian; Barquin, Jose;
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Abstract

The bioassessment of aquatic ecosystems is currently based on various biotic indices that use the occurrence and/or abundance of selected taxonomic groups to define ecological status. These conventional indices have some limitations, often related to difficulties in morphological identification of bioindicator taxa. Recent development of DNA barcoding and metabarcoding could potentially alleviate some of these limitations, by using DNA sequences instead of morphology to identify organisms and to characterize a given ecosystem. In this paper, we review the structure of conventional biotic indices, and we present the results of pilot metabarcoding studies using environmental DNA to infer biotic indices. We discuss the main advantages and pitfalls of metabarcoding approaches to assess parameters such as richness, abundance, taxonomic composition and species ecological values, to be used for calculation of biotic indices. We present some future developments to fully exploit the potential of metabarcoding data and improve the accuracy and precision of their analysis. We also propose some recommendations for the future integration of DNA metabarcoding to routine biomonitoring programs. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Keywords

Biomonitoring; Bioassessment; Marine; Freshwater; Environmental DNA; Metabarcording

Published in

Science of the Total Environment
2018, Volume: 637-638, pages: 1295-1310

    Associated SLU-program

    Lakes and watercourses

    Sustainable Development Goals

    SDG14 Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

    UKÄ Subject classification

    Other Biological Topics

    Publication identifier

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.05.002

    Permanent link to this page (URI)

    https://res.slu.se/id/publ/96343