Mapping biodiversity hotspots of fish communities through environmental DNA: digging down to sediments and harnessing the power of long reads

Healthy aquatic ecosystems are crucial for our planet’s ecological well-being and human livelihoods. To support sustainable management and conservation actions, accurate biodiversity assessment is of crucial importance. However, traditional monitoring is time-consuming, labor-intensive, costly, and often harmful to the environment. Here, I will utilize cutting-edge environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques to create a global map of fish biodiversity. By using eDNA metabarcoding across diverse water bodies worldwide, I’ll compare fish diversity estimates from water and sediment samples. This will enhance our understanding of eDNA performance and its suitability for monitoring aquatic environments. Additionally, I will evaluate the effectiveness of long vs. short DNA fragments for accurate species identification. These finding will advance knowledge of fish biodiversity, improve eDNA monitoring capabilities, and contribute to enhanced conservation efforts both at global and national scale.