Macroinvertebrate metabarcoding (DP1.20126.001)

Benthic macroinvertebrate metabarcodingsamples are collected three times per year at wadeable stream, river, and lake sites during aquatic biology bout windows, roughly in spring, summer, and fall, at the same time and location as morphological taxonomy samples. Samples are collected using the most appropriate sampler for the habitat type, including Surber, Hess, hand corer, modified kicknet, D-frame sweep, and petite ponar samplers. In wadeable streams, samples are collected in the most dominant habitat type (e.g. riffles, runs, pools, step pools). In lakes and rivers, samples are collected in littoral areas using a D-frame sweep. Samples collected during the mid-summer sampling bout (Bout 2) are sent to an external facility for homogenization and high-throughput sequencing. Samples collected during the spring and fall (Bout 1 and Bout 3) are preserved in ethanol and shipped to the NEON Biorepository for archiving. Instrumentation: