Comparison of mosquitoes and fly derived DNA as a tool for sampling vertebrate biodiversity in suburban forests in Berlin, Germany

The use of invertebrate-derived DNA (iDNA) is a promising non-invasive tool to monitor wildlife. While most studies have been carried out in dense tropical and sub-tropical forests and have focused on the use of a single category of invertebrates, this study compares the use of flies- and mosquito-derived DNA to assess vertebrate diversity in semi-urban environments. We conducted our sampling in four different forest plots in Berlin, Germany. Pools of flies and non-bloodfed mosquitoes were metabarcoded using 108 bp vertebrate-specific 12S rRNA (12S-V5) and 94 bp mammal-specific 16S rRNA (16Smam) mitochondrial markers, and individual bloodfed mosquitoes were sequenced using the 340 bp vertebrate-specific 12S rRNA fragment (Mam-12S-340). From the fly pools, we detected 10 mammal species using 16Smam, while 12S-V5 detected four bird, two amphibian and six mammal species. From the non-bloodfed mosquito pools, we only amplified putative contaminant DNA, indicating that mosquito females witho...

无脊椎动物源性DNA（invertebrate-derived DNA，iDNA）是一种极具应用前景的非侵入式野生动物监测工具。尽管既往相关研究多在茂密的热带与亚热带森林中开展，且仅聚焦单一类群无脊椎动物的应用，但本研究对比了蝇类与蚊类源性DNA在半城市化环境中评估脊椎动物多样性的效果。本研究在德国柏林的4处不同森林样地开展采样工作。研究团队采用108 bp脊椎动物特异性12S rRNA（12S-V5）与94 bp哺乳动物特异性16S rRNA（16Smam）线粒体标记基因，对蝇类混合样本以及未吸血蚊类混合样本进行元条形码测序（metabarcoding）；同时使用340 bp脊椎动物特异性12S rRNA片段（Mam-12S-340）对单只吸血蚊类进行测序。基于蝇类混合样本，研究团队通过16Smam标记基因检测到10种哺乳动物，而12S-V5标记基因则检测到4种鸟类、2种两栖类与6种哺乳动物。针对未吸血蚊类混合样本，研究团队仅扩增得到疑似污染物DNA，提示吸血雌蚊（原文后续内容截断）。