Improving biodiversity inventories based on metabarcoding of eDNA

ATLAS work package 4 presentation at ATLAS 3rd General Assembly

In the framework of ATLAS, we planned to sample sediment and water to test our ability to produce biodiversity inventories based on environmental DNA. During Medwaves cruise, we sampled sediment from four sites spanning from the Mediterranean to the Azores, with the objective to characterize molecularly the communities associated to cold-water corals in those four site and study the evolution as the Mediterranean Outflow Water penetrates the Atlantic. We sampled sediment with multicorers, and water with niskin bottles on the seafloor and CTD rosettes in the water column. We proceeded to molecular tests (RNA, DNA, and DNA treated to avoid extracellular DNA) to design the best molecular and bioinformatic pipelines allowing an optimal characterization of prokaryotic and eukaryotic communities. Preliminary results from this work will be discussed.