Data from: Large-scale biomonitoring of remote and threatened ecosystems via high-throughput sequencing

Biodiversity metrics are critical for assessment and monitoring of ecosystems threatened by anthropogenic stressors. Existing sorting and identification methods are too expensive and labour-intensive to be scaled up to meet management needs. Alternately, a high-throughput DNA sequencing approach could be used to determine biodiversity metrics from bulk environmental samples collected as part of a large-scale biomonitoring program. Here we show that both morphological and DNA sequence-based analyses are suitable for recovery of individual taxonomic richness, estimation of proportional abundance, and calculation of biodiversity metrics using a set of 24 benthic samples collected in the Peace-Athabasca Delta region of Canada. The high-throughput sequencing approach was able to recover all metrics with a higher degree of taxonomic resolution than morphological analysis. The reduced cost and increased capacity of DNA sequence-based approaches will finally allow environmental monitoring programs to operate at the geographical and temporal scale required by industrial and regulatory end-users.

生物多样性指标（biodiversity metrics）对于评估和监测受人为胁迫威胁的生态系统至关重要。现有物种分类与鉴定方法成本高昂且劳动密集，难以规模化推广以满足生态管理需求。相较之下，高通量DNA测序（high-throughput DNA sequencing）技术可从大型生物监测计划采集的批量环境样本中获取生物多样性指标。本研究针对加拿大皮斯-阿萨巴斯卡三角洲（Peace-Athabasca Delta）区域采集的24份底栖（benthic）样本展开分析，结果显示形态学分析与基于DNA序列的分析均适用于获取分类单元丰富度、估算相对丰度以及计算生物多样性指标。其中，高通量测序技术可获取全部指标，且分类学分辨率高于形态学分析。基于DNA序列的分析方法成本更低、通量更高，将最终使环境监测项目能够达到工业与监管终端用户所需的地理与时间尺度要求。