Environmental DNA: What's behind the term? Clarifying the terminology and recommendations for its future use in biomonitoring

The last decade brought a spectacular development of so‐called environmental (e)DNA studies. In general, “environmental DNA” is defined as DNA isolated from environmental samples, in contrast to genomic DNA that is extracted directly from specimens. However, the variety of different sources of eDNA...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Molecular ecology Vol. 29; no. 22; pp. 4258 - 4264
Main Authors: Pawlowski, Jan, Apothéloz‐Perret‐Gentil, Laure, Altermatt, Florian
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.11.2020
Subjects:
bioassessment
biological assessment
Biomonitoring
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
ecology
eDNA
Environmental DNA
environmental genomics
Environmental management
environmental monitoring
fish
Genetic testing
Invertebrates
macrobial
metabarcoding
microbial
Microorganisms
Organisms
Polymerase chain reaction
sediments
soil
species detection
Taxonomy
Terminology
ISSN:0962-1083, 1365-294X, 1365-294X
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The last decade brought a spectacular development of so‐called environmental (e)DNA studies. In general, “environmental DNA” is defined as DNA isolated from environmental samples, in contrast to genomic DNA that is extracted directly from specimens. However, the variety of different sources of eDNA and the range of taxonomic groups that are targeted by eDNA studies is large, which has led to some discussion about the breadth of the eDNA concept. In particular, there is a recent trend to restrict the use of the term “eDNA” to the DNA of macro‐organisms, which are not physically present in environmental samples. In this paper, we argue that such a distinction may not be ideal, because the eDNA signal can come from organisms across the whole tree of life. Consequently, we advocate that the term “eDNA” should be used in its generic sense, as originally defined, encompassing the DNA of all organisms present in environmental samples, including microbial, meiofaunal and macrobial taxa. We first suggest specifying the environmental origin of the DNA sample, such as water eDNA, sediment eDNA or soil eDNA. A second specification would then define the taxonomic group targeted through polymerase chain reaction amplification, such as fish eDNA, invertebrate eDNA and bacterial eDNA. This terminology does also not require assumptions about the specific state of the DNA sampled (intracellular or extracellular). We hope that such terminology will help better define the scope of eDNA studies, especially for environmental managers, who use them as reference in routine biomonitoring and bioassessment.
Bibliography:SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-News-1
content type line 14
ObjectType-Article-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0962-1083
1365-294X
1365-294X
DOI:10.1111/mec.15643