Unraveling Community Potential Interactions by Environmental DNA in the Hong Kong Coastal Waters
ABSTRACT Traditional approaches for studying potential interactions in marine ecosystems often struggle to fully capture all taxa in a community, especially rare species. This issue is particularly challenging in coastal waters with high biodiversity and spatiotemporal dynamics. In this study, we em...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2024-11-01
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| Series: | Environmental DNA |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70034 |
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| author | Sangwook Scott Lee Zhimeng Xu Yingdong Li Xiaodong Zhang Jinping Cheng Hongbin Liu |
| author_facet | Sangwook Scott Lee Zhimeng Xu Yingdong Li Xiaodong Zhang Jinping Cheng Hongbin Liu |
| author_sort | Sangwook Scott Lee |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | ABSTRACT Traditional approaches for studying potential interactions in marine ecosystems often struggle to fully capture all taxa in a community, especially rare species. This issue is particularly challenging in coastal waters with high biodiversity and spatiotemporal dynamics. In this study, we employed environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, utilizing multiple marker genes, to comprehensively investigate interspecific interactions across various domains in the subtropical coastal waters of Hong Kong. The southern and eastern regions of Hong Kong waters exhibit distinct environmental seasonality, and our investigation focused on comparing the potential interaction networks and the keystone taxa between these two regions. The putative species interaction networks across various groups (i.e., bacteria, protists, and metazoans) were revealed by using weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA). Our results showed that primary consumers, mainly dinoflagellates and ciliates, were the dominant actors within the interaction networks, although their distributions varied between the two regions. Bacterial taxa from the Pseudomonadota groups primarily constituted saprobes in the southern region, while exhibiting an even distribution in the eastern region. The interaction network in the southern region was larger but less stable compared to the eastern region. This could be attributed to the stronger responses of keystone taxa to environmental variations and the relatively higher number of connectors (e.g., Akashiwo and Protoperidinium within Dinophyceae) in the eastern region. Our findings highlight the versatility of eDNA metabarcoding for studying potential species interactions, providing critical insights into ecosystem structure and stability, and offering suggestions for marine biodiversity conservation. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ec393a154e5b41508a987a87342d2117 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2637-4943 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-11-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental DNA |
| spelling | doaj-art-ec393a154e5b41508a987a87342d21172025-01-29T05:11:50ZengWileyEnvironmental DNA2637-49432024-11-0166n/an/a10.1002/edn3.70034Unraveling Community Potential Interactions by Environmental DNA in the Hong Kong Coastal WatersSangwook Scott Lee0Zhimeng Xu1Yingdong Li2Xiaodong Zhang3Jinping Cheng4Hongbin Liu5Department of Ocean Science The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong ChinaDepartment of Ocean Science The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong ChinaDepartment of Ocean Science The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong ChinaDepartment of Ocean Science The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong ChinaDepartment of Science and Environmental Studies and State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution The Education University of Hong Kong, New Territories Hong Kong ChinaDepartment of Ocean Science The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong ChinaABSTRACT Traditional approaches for studying potential interactions in marine ecosystems often struggle to fully capture all taxa in a community, especially rare species. This issue is particularly challenging in coastal waters with high biodiversity and spatiotemporal dynamics. In this study, we employed environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, utilizing multiple marker genes, to comprehensively investigate interspecific interactions across various domains in the subtropical coastal waters of Hong Kong. The southern and eastern regions of Hong Kong waters exhibit distinct environmental seasonality, and our investigation focused on comparing the potential interaction networks and the keystone taxa between these two regions. The putative species interaction networks across various groups (i.e., bacteria, protists, and metazoans) were revealed by using weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA). Our results showed that primary consumers, mainly dinoflagellates and ciliates, were the dominant actors within the interaction networks, although their distributions varied between the two regions. Bacterial taxa from the Pseudomonadota groups primarily constituted saprobes in the southern region, while exhibiting an even distribution in the eastern region. The interaction network in the southern region was larger but less stable compared to the eastern region. This could be attributed to the stronger responses of keystone taxa to environmental variations and the relatively higher number of connectors (e.g., Akashiwo and Protoperidinium within Dinophyceae) in the eastern region. Our findings highlight the versatility of eDNA metabarcoding for studying potential species interactions, providing critical insights into ecosystem structure and stability, and offering suggestions for marine biodiversity conservation.https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70034biotic interactioncoastal waterenvironmental DNA metabarcodingkeystone taxanetwork analysis |
| spellingShingle | Sangwook Scott Lee Zhimeng Xu Yingdong Li Xiaodong Zhang Jinping Cheng Hongbin Liu Unraveling Community Potential Interactions by Environmental DNA in the Hong Kong Coastal Waters Environmental DNA biotic interaction coastal water environmental DNA metabarcoding keystone taxa network analysis |
| title | Unraveling Community Potential Interactions by Environmental DNA in the Hong Kong Coastal Waters |
| title_full | Unraveling Community Potential Interactions by Environmental DNA in the Hong Kong Coastal Waters |
| title_fullStr | Unraveling Community Potential Interactions by Environmental DNA in the Hong Kong Coastal Waters |
| title_full_unstemmed | Unraveling Community Potential Interactions by Environmental DNA in the Hong Kong Coastal Waters |
| title_short | Unraveling Community Potential Interactions by Environmental DNA in the Hong Kong Coastal Waters |
| title_sort | unraveling community potential interactions by environmental dna in the hong kong coastal waters |
| topic | biotic interaction coastal water environmental DNA metabarcoding keystone taxa network analysis |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70034 |
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