Metabarcoding reveals high‐resolution biogeographical and metaphylogeographical patterns through marine barriers

• DOI: 10.1111/jbi.14548
• Publication Date: 2022-12-30T01:00:31Z
• Authors: Adrià Antich; Creu Palacín; Jesús Zarcero; Owen Simon Wangen...; Xavier Turon
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 03 medical and health sciences; 13. Climate action; 14. Life underwater; 15. Life on land

Abstract Aim It has been predicted that there should be concordance between biogeographical and phylogeographical processes structuring multi‐species regional assemblages. We hypothesise oceanographic barriers in the marine environment affect concomitantly distribution connectivity of biota, thus producing congruent structures. also predict macro‐ meio‐eukaryotes will differentially affected by hydrological features. Location The Atlanto‐Mediterranean transition along E Iberian coast marked Almeria‐Oran Front (AOF) Ibiza Channel discontinuities. Taxon Eukaryotes. Methods A new analytical framework based metabarcoding community DNA a hypervariable marker is presented. This allows simultaneous detection multispecies Shallow hard‐bottom communities were sampled at 12 sites over littoral zone community‐DNA was performed using cytochrome c oxidase I marker. resulting dataset analysed several levels: beta diversity Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTUs) as surrogate for species, Exact Sequence Variants haplotypes. assessed genetic differentiation within MOTUs (metaphylogeography). Analyses combined separately meio‐eukaryotes. Results Both discontinuities had detectable effect, more all levels AOF than Channel. MOTU provided clear‐cut patterns ESVs. metaphylogeographical approach highest resolution terms differentiating localities identifying geographical barriers. separate analyses showed higher latter, both differentiation. Main Conclusions Metabarcoding coupled with metaphylogeography allowed characterisation heterogeneity composition population structure transition, coherent known methodology unlocks vast amount information on different components biodiversity basic applied research.