Infodoc : Sciences, Techniques et Culture

Tropical forests are among the most biodiverse and structurally complex ecosystems on Earth, harboring a disproportionately high share of global biodiversity. In the last decades, environmentalDNA (eDNA) has emerged as a promising tool in conservation and community ecology. By gettingplants eDNA from soil samples, we aim to carry out a more complete and faster forest inventoryvthan manual inventories. But eDNA-based surveys faced many challenging uncertainties, from its production, its transport and its persistence over time in soils, to its amplification and assignment accuracy. In this article, we sampled plants DNA in soil from a 12 ha of surveyed plot in a highlandtropical rainforest in French Guyana. The coverage and the accuracy of three genetic markers(Sper01, ITS2 and 18S) hav[...]

Tropical forests are among the most biodiverse and structurally complex ecosystems on Earth, harboring a disproportionately high share of global biodiversity. In the last decades, environmentalDNA (eDNA) has emerged as a promising tool in conservation and community ecology. By gettingplants eDNA from soil samples, we aim to carry out a more complete and faster forest inventoryvthan manual inventories. But eDNA-based surveys faced many challenging uncertainties, from its production, its transport and its persistence over time in soils, to its amplification and assignment accuracy. In this article, we sampled plants DNA in soil from a 12 ha of surveyed plot in a highlandtropical rainforest in French Guyana. The coverage and the accuracy of three genetic markers(Sper01, ITS2 and 18S) have been tested. Four spatial models have been tested to infer eDNA distribution from botanical data. Nineteen morphological traits have been used to explainvariabilities in spatial patterns. Eight environmental drivers have been tested to explain variations indiversity patterns. Our study reveals challenging limitations in the use of eDNA in tropical forests.The consolidation of amplification and assignment steps are essential for more advanced use ofeDNA for vegetation mapping, roots interaction studies and diversity estimation.