How quantitative is metabarcoding: a meta-analytical approach

Lamb, Philip D., Hunter, Ewan, Pinnegar, John K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5061-9520, Creer, Simon, Davies, Richard G. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0145-0818 and Taylor, Martin I. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3858-0712 (2019) How quantitative is metabarcoding: a meta-analytical approach. Molecular Ecology, 28 (2). pp. 420-430. ISSN 0962-1083

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Abstract

Metabarcoding has been used in a range of ecological applications such as taxonomic assignment, dietary analysis, and the analysis of environmental DNA. However, after a decade of use in these applications there is little consensus on the extent to which proportions of reads generated corresponds to the original proportions of species in a community. To quantify our current understanding we conducted a structured review and meta‐analysis. The analysis suggests that a weak quantitative relationship may exist between the biomass and sequences produced (slope = 0.52 ±0.34, p<0.01), albeit it with a large degree of uncertainty. None of the tested moderators: sequencing platform type, the number of species used in a trial, or the source of DNA were able to explain the variance. Our current understanding of the factors affecting the quantitative performance of metabarcoding is still limited: additional research is required before metabarcoding can be confidently utilised for quantitative applications. Until then, we advocate the inclusion of mock communities when metabarcoding as this facilitates direct assessment of the quantitative ability of any given study.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Special Issue: SPECIES INTERACTIONS, ECOLOGICAL NETWORKS AND COMMUNITY DYNAMICS
Uncontrolled Keywords:	metabarcoding,biomass,high‐throughput,next‐generation,sequencing,meta‐analysis,metabarcoding,next-generation sequencing,meta-analysis,high-throughput sequencing,genetics,ecology, evolution, behavior and systematics ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1300/1311
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Organisms and the Environment Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Collaborative Centre for Sustainable Use of the Seas
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	30 Oct 2018 16:30
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2023 01:24
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/68702
DOI:	10.1111/mec.14920

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