Second-generation environmental sequencing unmasks marine metazoan biodiversity.
Biodiversity is of crucial importance for ecosystem functioning, sustainability and resilience, but the magnitude and organization of marine diversity at a range of spatial and taxonomic scales are undefined. In this paper, we use second-generation sequencing to unmask putatively diverse marine metazoan biodiversity in a Scottish temperate benthic ecosystem. We show that remarkable differences in diversity occurred at microgeographical scales and refute currently accepted ecological and taxonomic paradigms of meiofaunal identity, rank abundance and concomitant understanding of trophic dynamics. Richness estimates from the current benchmarked Operational Clustering of Taxonomic Units from Parallel UltraSequencing analyses are broadly aligned with those derived from morphological assessments. However, the slope of taxon rarefaction curves for many phyla remains incomplete, suggesting that the true alpha diversity is likely to exceed current perceptions. The approaches provide a rapid, objective and cost-effective taxonomic framework for exploring links between ecosystem structure and function of all hitherto intractable, but ecologically important, communities.
Fonseca
Vera G
VG
Molecular Ecology and Fisheries Genetics Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences, Environment Centre Wales, Bangor University, Deiniol Road, Gwynedd LL57 2UW, UK.
Carvalho
Gary R
GR
Sung
Way
W
Johnson
Harriet F
HF
Power
Deborah M
DM
Neill
Simon P
SP
Packer
Margaret
M
Blaxter
Mark L
ML
Lambshead
P John D
PJ
Thomas
W Kelley
WK
Creer
Simon
S
D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D019295:Computational Biology; D008386:Marine Biology; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000379:methods*