TY - JOUR

T1 - Holistic monitoring of freshwater and terrestrial vertebrates by camera trapping and environmental DNA

AU - Holm, Anne Marie Rubæk

AU - Knudsen, Steen Wilhelm

AU - Månsson, Malene

AU - Pedersen, Ditte Elmgreen

AU - Nordfoss, Pauli Holm

AU - Johansson, Daniel Klingberg

AU - Gramsbergen, Marthe

AU - Havmøller, Rasmus Worsøe

AU - Sigsgaard, Eva Egelyng

AU - Thomsen, Philip Francis

AU - Olsen, Morten Tange

AU - Møller, Peter Rask

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Environmental DNA published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - The anthropogenic impact on the world's ecosystems is severe and the need for non-invasive, cost-effective tools for monitoring and understanding those impacts are therefore urgent. Here, we combine two such methods in a comprehensive multi-year study; camera trapping (CT) and analysis of environmental DNA (eDNA), in river marginal zones of a temperate, wetland Nature Park in Denmark. CT was performed from 2015 to 2019 for a total of 8778 camera trap days and yielded 24,376 animal observations. The CT observations covered 87 taxa, of which 78 were identified to species level, and 73 were wild native species. For eDNA metabarcoding, a total of 114 freshwater samples were collected from eight sites in all four seasons from 2017 to 2018. The eDNA results yielded a total detection of 80 taxa, of which 74 were identified to species level, and 65 were wild native species. While the number of taxa detected with the two methods were comparable, the species overlap was only 20%. In combination, CT and eDNA monitoring thus yielded a total of 115 wild species (20 fishes, 4 amphibians, one snake, 23 mammals, and 67 birds), representing half of the species found via conventional surveys over the last ca. 20 years (83% of fishes, 68% of mammals, 67% of amphibians, 41% of birds, and 20% of reptiles). Our study demonstrates that a holistic approach combining two non-invasive methods, CT, and eDNA metabarcoding, has great potential as a cost-effective biomonitoring tool for vertebrates.

AB - The anthropogenic impact on the world's ecosystems is severe and the need for non-invasive, cost-effective tools for monitoring and understanding those impacts are therefore urgent. Here, we combine two such methods in a comprehensive multi-year study; camera trapping (CT) and analysis of environmental DNA (eDNA), in river marginal zones of a temperate, wetland Nature Park in Denmark. CT was performed from 2015 to 2019 for a total of 8778 camera trap days and yielded 24,376 animal observations. The CT observations covered 87 taxa, of which 78 were identified to species level, and 73 were wild native species. For eDNA metabarcoding, a total of 114 freshwater samples were collected from eight sites in all four seasons from 2017 to 2018. The eDNA results yielded a total detection of 80 taxa, of which 74 were identified to species level, and 65 were wild native species. While the number of taxa detected with the two methods were comparable, the species overlap was only 20%. In combination, CT and eDNA monitoring thus yielded a total of 115 wild species (20 fishes, 4 amphibians, one snake, 23 mammals, and 67 birds), representing half of the species found via conventional surveys over the last ca. 20 years (83% of fishes, 68% of mammals, 67% of amphibians, 41% of birds, and 20% of reptiles). Our study demonstrates that a holistic approach combining two non-invasive methods, CT, and eDNA metabarcoding, has great potential as a cost-effective biomonitoring tool for vertebrates.

KW - biodiversity

KW - camera traps

KW - Denmark

KW - eDNA

KW - metabarcoding

KW - monitoring

U2 - 10.1002/edn3.481

DO - 10.1002/edn3.481

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85174546734

VL - 5

SP - 1608

EP - 1622

JO - Environmental DNA

JF - Environmental DNA

SN - 2637-4943

IS - 6

ER -