Measuring protected-area outcomes with leech iDNA: large-scale quantification of vertebrate biodiversity in Ailaoshan nature reserve

Ji, Yinqiu; Baker, Christopher C. M.; Li, Yuanheng; Popescu, Viorel D.; Wang, Zhengyang; Wang, Jiaxin; Wang, Lin; Wu, Chun-Ying; Cai, Hua; Zhong-xing, Yang; Yang, Chunyan; Xu, Charles C.Y.; Wen, Qingzhong; Pierce, Naomi E.; Yu, Douglas W.

doi:10.1101/2020.02.10.941336

Cited by 12 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 113 publications

(220 reference statements)

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“…-Long-term monitoring will be necessary for tracking the biodiversity consequences of conversion from simple to heterogeneous forests and for comparing different anthropogenic treatments. Studies in China, the UK, and Borneo have shown that DNA metabarcoding is an efficient and standardizable tool for measuring how animal biodiversity in forests varies as a function of management and inherent condition (Barsoum et al, 2019;Edwards et al, 2014;Hua et al, 2016;Ji et al, 2013Ji et al, , 2020Wang et al, 2019;Yang et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2016). We also think that there is considerable scope for using remotely sensed measures (multispectral and LiDAR) to efficiently generate environmental covariates for the large-scale mapping and monitoring of pest outbreaks like bark beetles in particular (Ji et al, 2007; and terrestrial biodiversity in general (Bush et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ecological impact of pest-induced tree dieback on insect biodiversity in Yunnan pine plantations, China

Cai

Yang

Wang

et al. 2021

Forest Ecology and Management

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China has recently announced a reform of forestry policy, with a major goal being to transform from plantation to heterogeneous forests, which have higher resistance to pests and disease and house more biodiversity. One driver of reform is increased intensity and frequency of pest-induced tree-dieback events. To inform management, we ask what effects these events have on insect biodiversity in Pinus yunnanensis monocultures in Yunnan province, the province with one of the highest proportions of forest cover in China. We sampled aerial arthropods (mostly insect) biodiversity along gradients of Pinus yunnanensis dieback severity using Malaise traps and used metabarcoding to characterise the insect community. We used MS-GDM ('multi-site generalized dissimilarity modelling of zeta diversity'), zeta-decline analysis, and iNEXT ('Interpolation and extrapolation for species diversity') to assess community change as functions of forest-structure covariates. Metabarcoding of Malaisetrapped insects reveals that bark-beetle induced forest dieback does not result in detectable differences in species diversity but does result in compositional change, with the biggest turnover occurring between 0% and infested-0%-open-canopy forests and 20%-infested-20%-open-canopy forests. Zeta-decline analysis found that the insect community in low-infestation forests is characterized by a stochastic assembly, while in highinfestation forests, the community structure is consistent with niche assembly. Our results thus suggest that bark-beetle dieback mimics natural forest-gap dynamics, consistent with the interpretation of bark beetles as a keystone species in European conifer forests, where it has been proposed that forest heterogeneity can be created efficiently by allowing natural disturbances, including bark-beetle outbreaks, to proceed naturally, without being mitigated by deadwood removal and dense replanting. In Yunnan's situation, and given predicted increases in bark-beetle dieback severity and frequency, this strategy should probably be supplemented with anthropogenic treatments, such as deadwood enhancement and planting of multiple tree species, to accelerate the succession of plantations into heterogeneous forests.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ecological impact of pest-induced tree dieback on insect biodiversity in Yunnan pine plantations, China

Cai

Yang

Wang

et al. 2021

Forest Ecology and Management

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“…In terrestrial ecosystems, eDNA and iDNA have primarily been used to detect species of interest (Lopes et al, 2020;Schnell et al, 2012Schnell et al, , 2015 or to assess general patterns of biodiversity and ecosystems (Calvignac-Spencer et al, 2013;Deiner et al, 2017;Ji et al, 2020;Schnell et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To access iDNA in terrestrial ecosystems, two predominant "invertebrate systems" have emerged in recent years: the use of carrion fly-derived DNA (Calvignac-Spencer et al, 2013; Kocher et al, 2017;Rodgers et al, 2017;Schubert et al, 2015) and the use of host DNA derived from hematophagous leeches (Abrams et al, 2019;Ji et al, 2020;Schnell et al, 2015Schnell et al, , 2018Tilker et al, 2020a;Weiskopf et al, 2018). While leechderived DNA has in the past been used to understand the composition of mammalian communities in tropical rainforests (Ji et al, 2020;Tessler et al, 2018;Weiskopf et al, 2018), the approach has not, to the best of our knowledge, been used to assess species genetic diversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using terrestrial leeches to assess the genetic diversity of an elusive species: The Annamite striped rabbit Nesolagus timminsi

et al. 2021

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“…The emerging molecular field of iDNA has contributed to the knowledge on leech diet and leech-derived iDNA is now used as a complementary tool to traditional vertebrate monitoring methods (Schnell et al, 2012;Ji et al, 2020). Such leechderived iDNA studies have focused almost exclusively on terrestrial bloodfeeding leeches, and in line with the geographical distribution of (Borda et al, 2008), they have been used to detect vertebrates in Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Japan), Africa (Madagascar) and Oceania (Australia and Tasmania) (Abrams et al, 2019;Drinkwater et al, 2018;Fahmy et al, 2019;Ji et al, 2020;Morishima et al, 2020;Nguyen et al, 2021;Schnell et al, 2018;Schnell et al, 2012;Tilker et al, 2020. As these haemadipsid leeches have an Indo-Pacific distribution, if iDNA from leeches is to be used for vertebrate monitoring elsewhere in the world, the vertebrate dietary range of non-haemadipsid leeches will need to be assessed, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The potential of aquatic haematophagous, liquidosomatophagous and macrophagous leeches as a tool for iDNA characterisation

Lynggaard

Oceguera‐Figueroa²,

Kvist³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Leeches play important roles in food webs due to their abundance, diversity and feeding habits. Studies using invertebrate-derived DNA (iDNA) extracted from leech gut contents to target vertebrate DNA have focused on the Indo-Pacific region and mainly leveraged the leech family Haemadipsidae, composed of haematophagous terrestrial leeches, while the aquatic haematophagous, liquidosomatophagous and macrophagous counterparts have largely been disregarded. While there is general knowledge regarding the taxonomic groups that leeches prefer to feed on, detailed taxonomic resolution is still missing and therefore, their potential use for monitoring animals is not known. In this study, 116 non-haemadipsid leeches belonging to 12 species and spanning the three feeding habits were collected in Mexico and Canada. We used DNA metabarcoding to investigate their diet and assess their potential use for vertebrate monitoring. We detected vertebrate taxa from five orders including fish, turtles and birds in the diet of the aquatic haematophagous leeches; eight invertebrate orders of annelids, arthropods and molluscs in the liquidosomatophagous leeches; and ten orders of invertebrates belonging to Arthropoda and Annelida, as well as one vertebrate and one parasitic nematode, in the macrophagous leeches. These results show the potential use of iDNA from the gut content of aquatic haematophagous leeches for retrieving vertebrate taxa, and from macrophagous and liquidosomatophagous counterparts for invertebrates. Our study provides information about the dietary range of the freshwater leeches and the non-haemadipsid terrestrial leech and proof-of-concept for the use of non-haemadipsid leeches for animal monitoring, expanding our knowledge of the use of iDNA from leech gut contents to North America.

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Measuring protected-area outcomes with leech iDNA: large-scale quantification of vertebrate biodiversity in Ailaoshan nature reserve

Cited by 12 publications

References 113 publications

The ecological impact of pest-induced tree dieback on insect biodiversity in Yunnan pine plantations, China

The ecological impact of pest-induced tree dieback on insect biodiversity in Yunnan pine plantations, China

Using terrestrial leeches to assess the genetic diversity of an elusive species: The Annamite striped rabbit Nesolagus timminsi

The potential of aquatic haematophagous, liquidosomatophagous and macrophagous leeches as a tool for iDNA characterisation

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