Testing the validity of using eDNA for carbon origin analysis from sediment cores.
Abstract
The present pilot study tested the validity of metabarcoding to characterise blue carbon stocks in the UK using sediments from the Solway Firth. This was achieved through three main objectives. The first is to develop a publicly available and open access reference library for DNA metabarcoding of eDNA samples to investigate the origin of organic carbon from intertidal sediment samples (including both marine and terrestrial species), which focused on the characterisation of macrophytes and molluscs, creating two bespoke reference libraries for the rbcL gene (macrophytes) and the 18S rRNA gene (molluscs) by downloading publicly available sequence and taxonomic data associated with the target genes. The second is to test the validity and suitability of using metabarcoding of eDNA samples as a method for carbon origin analysis from sediment cores in order to demonstrate its use for UK carbon calculations. The last is to create a spreadsheet listing the organisms identified (to the lowest taxonomic resolution, including scientific and common names), the fragment of DNA used to identify that species, the reference library and sequence ID used to identify the species, the confidence value of the match and the number of reads.