A particularly promising source is the surface of plant material, on which arthropods deposit eDNA, for example in chew marks or faeces. eDNA analysis has revolutionized the field of biomonitoring, and various substrates have been shown to contain arthropod eDNA. Recently, environmental DNA (eDNA) has been suggested as an alternative to traditional arthropod monitoring. Moreover, passive trapping is usually lethal and provides no information on arthropod–plant interactions, which are critical for understanding ecology and inferring consequences of species losses or invasions. Different trapping methods often capture only a subset of arthropod diversity. Arthropods are often monitored by passive sampling, for example with Malaise or pitfall traps, but such methods have disadvantages. Monitoring arthropod communities is essential to understand their diversity and interactions, and in light of recent reports on insect decline, has become a research priority. The simplicity of our approach and the ability to detect highly diverse arthropod communities from all over the world in tea bags also highlights its utility for outreach purposes and to raise awareness about biodiversity.Īrthropods, the most diverse animal group, are central to the function of global ecosystems as pollinators, prey and biocontrol agents, yet also include pest and parasite species of great economic and medical relevance.
Considering these results, dried plant material appears excellently suited as a novel tool to monitor arthropods and arthropod–plant interactions, detect agricultural pests and identify the geographical origin of imported plant material. Atypically for eDNA, arthropod DNA in dried plants shows very high temporal stability, opening up plant archives as a source for historical arthropod eDNA. These samples recovered ecologically and taxonomically diverse arthropod communities, a total of over a thousand species in more than 20 orders, many of them specific to their host plant and its geographical origin. Using this assay, we analysed various commercially produced teas and herbs. We designed a metabarcoding assay to enrich diverse arthropod communities while preventing amplification of plant DNA. Here we show that dried plant material is a highly promising source for arthropod community eDNA. Various sources have been shown to contain eDNA of diverse organisms, for example, water, soil, gut content and plant surfaces. Environmental DNA analysis (eDNA) has revolutionized the field of biomonitoring in the past years.
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