Research
| Title： | Fish diversity and continuous sampling strategy in the lower Hanjiang River: Comparing the eDNA with the traditional methods |
|---|---|
| First author： | Xiao, Jiaman; Zhang, Renbin; Zhang, Bowei; Xia, Ming; Xiong, Fei; Zhai, Dongdong; Liu, Hongyan; Chen, Yuanyuan; Wang, Ying; Hu, Le; Li, Wen; Huang, Yan |
| Journal： | GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION |
| Years： | 2025 |
| DOI： | 10.1016/j.gecco.2025.e03963 |
| Abstract： | Fish diversity was an important indicator of the health of aquatic ecosystems. However, it has declined dramatically in decades in river systems by various human activities. Recently, environmental DNA (eDNA), preventing harm to fish and mitigating damage to their habitat, has gained more attention as a novel approach for the assessment of fish populations. However, there was still a gap in the comparative analysis of fish diversity and community between eDNA and traditional methods for several consecutive days in river ecosystems. Our study sampled water and fish in the lower reaches of Hanjiang River in continuous 9-10 days by using both eDNA and traditional methods. We found that eDNA covered 70-80 % of the species (at the species level) obtained by traditional methods and that eDNA had the capacity to identify more fish, especially threatened species (including CR, EN and VU). Furthermore, both methods could significantly differentiate fish communities among three sections while communities through different methods in every section showed distinct. Moreover, our results illustrated that eDNA method was effective in obtaining most fish within approximately 6 days in all sections. Especially, the 70 % detection of threatened species was typically achieved within 2-4 days, while the identification of 90 % was accomplished within 4-8 days. Above all, eDNA could be an effective method in surveys of fish diversity and community in river sections and time-series sampling strategy should be taken into consideration according to different purposes. This study shed light on the applicability and effectiveness of eDNA method in the investigation of fish resources in river ecosystems. |
