Special issue on molecular detection of trophic interactions: Unpicking the tangled bank

Symondson, William Oliver Christian; Harwood, James D.

doi:10.1111/mec.12831

Cited by 65 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…In particular, there seems to be a strong dichotomy between terrestrial and aquatic studies. Most studies tend to focus on one or the other habitat, and workshops and meetings are oftentimes attended by enthusiasts of only a given realm (but see Symondson and Harwood 2014 for an excellent exception). As another zone of fissure, empirical data are arguably lagging behind theoretical advances.…”

Section: Food Web Structure Is Affected By Resolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of DNA barcodes in food web construction—terrestrial and aquatic ecologists unite!

Roslin

Majaneva

2016

Genome

104

103

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By depicting who eats whom, food webs offer descriptions of how groupings in nature (typically species or populations) are linked to each other. For asking questions on how food webs are built and work, we need descriptions of food webs at different levels of resolution. DNA techniques provide opportunities for highly resolved webs. In this paper, we offer an exposé of how DNA-based techniques, and DNA barcodes in particular, have recently been used to construct food web structure in both terrestrial and aquatic systems. We highlight how such techniques can be applied to simultaneously improve the taxonomic resolution of the nodes of the web (i.e., the species), and the links between them (i.e., who eats whom). We end by proposing how DNA barcodes and DNA information may allow new approaches to the construction of larger interaction webs, and overcome some hurdles to achieving adequate sample size. Most importantly, we propose that the joint adoption and development of these techniques may serve to unite approaches to food web studies in aquatic and terrestrial systems-revealing the extent to which food webs in these environments are structured similarly to or differently from each other, and how they are linked by dispersal.Key words: DNA barcodes, food webs, species delimitation, species identification, trophic links, ecological networks.Résumé : En brossant le tableau de qui mange qui, les réseaux trophiques livrent une description des liens qui unissent des groupes d'espèces ou de populations. Afin de déterminer comment ces réseaux sont constitués et comment ils fonctionnent, il nous faut une description de ces réseaux à différents niveaux de résolution. Les techniques de l'ADN permettent de produire des réseaux trophiques de grande résolution. Dans ce travail, les auteurs décrivent comment les techniques fondées sur l'ADN, en particulier les codes à barres de l'ADN, ont récemment été employées pour étudier la structure des réseaux trophiques chez des systèmes tant terrestres qu'aquatiques. Les auteurs soulignent comment ces techniques peuvent servir à simultanément améliorer la résolution taxonomique des noeuds d'un réseau (i.e. les espèces) ainsi que les relations entre eux (qui mange qui). Les auteurs terminent en proposant des moyens via lesquels les codes à barres et l'information tirée de l'ADN rendent possible de nouvelles approches en vue de la construction de plus grands réseaux d'interaction et permettent de surmonter des difficultés rencontrées dans l'acquisition d'échantillons de taille suffisante. Surtout, les auteurs proposent que l'adoption et le développement conjoints de ces techniques peut contribuer à unifier les approches employées dans l'étude des réseaux trophiques au sein des systèmes aquatiques et terrestres. Cela permettra de révéler l'étendue de la similarité ou de la dissimilarité dans la façon dont sont structurés les réseaux dans ces différents environnements et comment ils sont liés par la dispersion. [Traduit par la Rédaction]

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Section: Food Web Structure Is Affected By Resolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of DNA barcodes in food web construction—terrestrial and aquatic ecologists unite!

Roslin

Majaneva

2016

Genome

104

103

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“…In the past decade molecular techniques have been increasingly used to detect prey DNA and identify predated species using gut contents or faecal samples from predators (Symondson, 2002;King et al, 2008;Symondson & Harwood, 2014). For predators of no…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Faeces of generalist predators as ‘biodiversity capsules’: A new tool for biodiversity assessment in remote and inaccessible habitats

2015

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“…Yet, it is also well known that PCR introduces biases when applied to heterogeneous samples with multiple DNA templates, which commonly produces an opposite trend, that is, it reduces the number of inferred diets (false negatives). Alternatively, PCR biases may select against the true diet in favor of other sources of DNA, being also prone to artefacts and confounding results (King et al ., ; Ji et al ., ; Zhou et al ., ; Symondson & Harwood, ; Ficetola et al ., ). Thus, the question still remains whether the increased spectra of inferences observed here and in other recent DNA‐based studies are reliable or heavily biased by PCR artifacts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Evaluation of bias on the assessment of diet breadth of herbivorous insects using molecular methods

et al. 2016

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The interactions between herbivores and their host plants play a key role in ecological processes. Understanding the width and nature of these interactions is fundamental to ecology and conservation. Recent research on DNA-based inference of trophic associations suggests that the host range of phytophagous insects in the tropics may be wider than previously thought based on traditional observation. However, the reliability of molecular inference of ecological associations, still strongly dependent on PCR and thus exposed to the risk of contamination with environmental DNA, is under debate. Here, we explored alternative procedures to reduce the chance of amplification of external, nondiet DNA, including surface decontamination and analysis of mid/hind guts, comparing the results with those obtained using the standard protocol. We studied 261 specimens in eight species of Neotropical Chrysomelidae that yielded 316 psbA-trnH intergenic spacer sequences (cpDNA marker of putative diets) from unique and multiple-band PCR results. The taxonomic identity of these sequences was inferred using the automated pipeline BAGpipe, yielding results consistent with 31 plant families. Regardless of the protocol used, a wide taxonomic spectrum of food was inferred for all chrysomelid species. Canonical Correspondence Analysis using these data revealed significant differences attributed mainly to species (expectedly, since they represent different ecologies), but also to treatment (untreated vs. cleaned/gut samples) and PCR results (single vs. multiple bands). Molecular identification of diets is not straightforward and, regardless of the species' niche breadth, combining approaches that reduce external contamination and studying multiple individuals per species may help increasing confidence in results.

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Special issue on molecular detection of trophic interactions: Unpicking the tangled bank

Cited by 65 publications

References 27 publications

The use of DNA barcodes in food web construction—terrestrial and aquatic ecologists unite!

The use of DNA barcodes in food web construction—terrestrial and aquatic ecologists unite!

Faeces of generalist predators as ‘biodiversity capsules’: A new tool for biodiversity assessment in remote and inaccessible habitats

Evaluation of bias on the assessment of diet breadth of herbivorous insects using molecular methods

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