Integrating eDNA Metabarcoding Analysis to Uncover Fish Community Structure in the Taiwan Strait

Marine fish communities in coastal systems are increasingly shaped by environmental gradients associated with anthropogenic pressures and climate variability, yet how these factors influence community assembly and functional traits remain poorly understood. In this study, environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding using the 12S MiFish primer with 33 water samples was integrated with taxonomic and functional diversity analyses, co-occurrence network analysis, the neutral community model, hierarchical modeling of species communities, and single-trait-based community-weighted means to investigate fish communities in the Taiwan Strait.