Testing PCR primers to accurately monitor pollinator communities from plant-derived eDNA

Abstract Plant derived environmental DNA (eDNA) has revolutionized our ability to study terrestrial arthropod communities. However, bee pollinators are still severely unrepresented in eDNA analyses. Here, we designed several PCR primers to enrich insects from plant-derived eDNA. We especially focussed on the utility of the primers to reconstruct pollinator communities, particularly on wild bees. We tested our primers using mock communities of different bee species as well as field collected flower eDNA samples. We found that all our primers are highly promising to enrich insect eDNA from plant material. All primers also provide highly reliable in recovering bee DNA. The primers recovered all bee species from the mock communities and also approximated their relative abundance. Moreover, we found highly diverse insect communities from our field collected samples, including diverse bee pollinators. Our study highlights the great promise of eDNA metabarcoding for the monitoring of plant associated insects, especially bee pollinators. The presented primer sets will greatly contribute to the status and interaction diversity of insect pollinator communities.