Plant Detection via Environmental DNA Metabarcoding
This study employs environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding to characterize the plant community within a tropical campus environment on Hainan Island, China. Environmental samples (e.g., soil) were collected from various locations across the campus to capture the local floristic diversity. Total DNA was extracted from these samples, and two complementary plant-specific barcode regions, rbcL and ITSu, were amplified via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to maximize taxonomic resolution and coverage. The resulting amplicon libraries were sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq platform to generate high-throughput sequencing data.