Scotland fish farms sediments Raw sequence reads

Environmental diversity surveys are crucial for the bioassessment of anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems. We tested the relevance of the DNA environmental sequencing approach (metabarcoding) to overcome the limitations of traditional benthic monitoring relying morphotaxonomic inventories. High-throughput sequencing is a serious alternative to describe microbial or meiofaunal communities. We base our comparisions on two commonly used biotic indices: the Infaunal Trophic Index and the AZTI Marine Biotic Index. We found that the molecular data faithfully reflected the morphology-based indices and provides an equivalent assessment of the impact associated with fish farms activities. We advocate that future benthic monitoring should integrate metabarcoding as a rapid and accurate tool for the evaluation of the quality of marine benthic ecosystems.