Fishing eDNA in One of the World’s Largest Rivers: A Case Study of Cross-Sectional and Depth Profile Sampling in the Yangtze

Abstract

The world's largest rivers are home to diverse, endemic, and threatened fish species. However, their sheer sizes make large-scale biomonitoring challenging. While environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding has become an established monitoring approach in smaller freshwater ecosystems, its suitability for large rivers may be challenged by the sheer extent of their cross sections (>1 km wide and tens of meters deep). Here, we sampled fish eDNA from multiple vertical layers and horizontal locations from two cross sections of the lower reach of the Yangtze River in China. Over half of the ASVs (amplicon sequence variants) were detected in only a single combination of the vertical layers and horizontal locations, with ∼7% across all combinations. We estimated the need to sample >100 L of water across the cross-sectional profiles to achieve ASV richness saturation, which translates to ∼60 L of water at the species level. No consistent pattern emerged for prioritizing certain depth and horizontal samples, yet we underline the importance of sampling and integrating different layers and locations simultaneously. Our study highlights the significance of spatially stratified sampling and sampling volumes when using eDNA approaches. Specifically, we developed and tested a scalable and broadly applicable strategy that advances the monitoring and conservation of large rivers.

Evaluating eDNA and eRNA metabarcoding for aquatic biodiversity assessment: From bacteria to vertebrates

“…1 , Supplementary Material Table S1 ). These cross-sections were over 1 km wide (1.32–2.48 km) and had an average depth of ∼20 m (5.5–62.5 m), resulting in heterogeneous cross-sectional distribution patterns of organisms [ 30 , 31 ]. In each cross-section, two replicates of 1 L water were filtered on-site through Millipore 0.45 μm hydrophilic nylon membranes (Merck Millipore, USA) from nine sampling points distributed in three vertical layers and three horizontal locations.…”