A DNA metabarcoding approach to characterize soil arthropod communities. (October 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Oliverio, Angela M.; Gan, Huijie; Wickings, Kyle; Fierer, Noah
• Is Part Of: Soil biology and biochemistry. Volume 125(2018)
• Page Start: 37
• Page End: 43
• Publication Date: 2018-10
• Subjects: Soil DNA -- Soil arthropods -- Morphological identification -- Environmental DNA sequencing -- CO1 metabarcoding; Soil biochemistry -- Periodicals; Soil biology -- Periodicals; Sols -- Biochimie -- Périodiques; Sols -- Biologie -- Périodiques; Sols -- Microbiologie -- Périodiques; Bodembiologie; Biochemie; 631.46
• DOI: 10.1016/j.soilbio.2018.06.026
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0038-0717

Abstract

Abstract: Belowground arthropod communities are diverse and our ability to characterize them remains logistically difficult and time consuming. Molecular metabarcoding techniques are routinely used to assess the diversity of both microbial and some 'macrobial' taxa across a range of environments, but the use of such techniques for characterizing soil arthropod diversity remains limited. Here we used three approaches to profile soil arthropod communities at the family level of resolution across 10 distinct sites via morphological identification, metabarcoding of DNA from the extracted arthropods, and metabarcoding directly from bulk soils. Although the three methods differed to some degree in their ability to detect some individual taxa, we found that all three methods yielded well-correlated site-level estimates of diversity (Spearman's ρ ≥ 0.63 with P < 0.05 for all correlations) and overall arthropod community composition (Mantel ρ ≥ 0.45 with P < 0.05). Of particular note is that DNA extracted directly from bulk soil yielded results comparable to analyses of DNA from extracted arthropods. Thus, DNA metabarcoding of bulk soil will likely be a useful tool for those researchers looking to incorporate multi-domain comparisons or for studies that require rapid assessments of arthropod diversity across a large number of soil samples. Highlights: We compared three methods for profiling soil arthropods. These were: morphological ID and metabarcoding of extracted arthropods or bulk soil. All methods yielded similar estimates of arthropod diversity and composition. There were some differences in methods in our ability to detect arthropod taxa. Metabarcoding of soil may be a valuable tool for assessing arthropod communities.