Ecological signals of arctic plant-microbe associations are consistent across eDNA and vegetation surveys ...

• Main Authors: Parisy, Bastien, Schmidt, Niels M., Wirta, Helena, Stewart, Laerke, Pellissier, Loic, Holben, William E., Pannoni, Sam, Somervuo, Panu, Jones, Mirkka M., Siren, Jukka, Vesterinen, Eero, Ovaskainen, Otso, Roslin, Tomas
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: ETH Zurich 2023
• Subjects: eDNA metabarcoding; environmental gradients; Greenland; joint species distri-bution model; observational data; plant-soil microbe associations; vegetation assessment; Arctic; Zackenberg
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000660066; http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/660066

Understanding how different taxa respond to abiotic characteristics of the environment is of key interest for understanding the assembly of communities. Yet, whether eDNA data will suffice to accurately capture environmental imprints has been the topic of some debate. In this study, we characterised patterns of species occurrences and co-occurrences in Zackenberg in northeast Greenland using environmental DNA. To explore the potential for extracting ecological signals from eDNA data alone, we compared two approaches (visual vegetation surveys and soil eDNA metabarcoding) to describing plant communities and their responses to abiotic conditions. We then examined plant associations with microbes using a joint species distribution model. We found that most (68%) of plant genera were detectable by both vegetation surveys and eDNA signatures. Species-specific occurrence data revealed how plants, bacteria and fungi responded to their abiotic environment - with plants, bacteria and fungi all responding similarly to ... : Metabarcoding and Metagenomics, 7 ...