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Ecological Intelligence

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Ecological Intelligence / Subject

metabarcoding

Peer-reviewed

A 211-site Japanese eDNA network shows how much coastal-fish monitoring changes when sampling gets frequent

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Japanese Archipelago
System
Coastal marine fish communities

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A high-frequency eDNA metabarcoding dataset used the MiFish primer set at 211 coastal sites across more than 3,000 km of the Japanese archipelago. From January 2018 to March 2019, 690 samples were collected using one-time, monthly and biweekly schedules and paired with environmental metadata. The dataset contains detections assigned to 1,477 fish species across 171 families and was designed to expose fine-scale temporal community variation.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The contribution is the sampling architecture as much as the species list. Repeated eDNA sampling can show when a one-off biodiversity snapshot is likely to miss seasonal turnover and can provide a reusable benchmark for designing monitoring cadence.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a data descriptor based on 2018–2019 sampling, not a demonstration that every detection represents local abundance or residency. eDNA results depend on transport, primer performance, reference libraries and sampling conditions, and temporal resolution is uneven among sites.

SOURCE

Scientific Data — primary dataset paper
View original evidence ↗

Six hundred ninety samples collected under one-time, monthly and biweekly schedules detected 1,477 fish species and preserved environmental metadata for resolving temporal community change.

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Peer-reviewed Global

Aquatic fungi just got a global dataset—and its gaps are as informative as its scale

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Global — 1,452 aquatic sites in 87 countries
System
Freshwater and marine aquatic ecosystems

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

The FunAqua data descriptor combines 1,076 sediment and 1,299 filtered-water samples from 1,452 sites in 87 countries and reports 50,152 fungal OTUs using long-read ITS metabarcoding. European samples make up about 56% of the dataset, with freshwater lakes and rivers much more heavily represented than several coastal and specialized aquatic habitats.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

This is valuable as both a biodiversity resource and a map of where the evidence is thin. Global microbial baselines become more useful when sampling geography, biome coverage, sequencing depth and laboratory differences remain visible rather than disappearing behind the word 'global.'

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Sampling is geographically and environmentally uneven, protocols and preservation histories vary among contributing campaigns, ITS barcoding has taxonomic limitations, and recovered DNA does not by itself distinguish actively growing aquatic fungi from spores or material transported into the sample.

SOURCE

Scientific Data
View original evidence ↗

FunAqua assembles long-read metabarcoding from 1,452 sites in 87 countries, but Europe supplies more than half the samples and fungal sequencing depth remains uneven.

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