Integration of DNA extraction, metabarcoding and an informatics pipeline to underpin a national citizen science honey monitoring scheme

Oliver, A. E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4923-277X, Newbold, L. K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8895-1406, Gweon, H. S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6218-6301, Read, D. S., Woodcock, B. A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0300-9951 and Pywell, R. F. (2021) Integration of DNA extraction, metabarcoding and an informatics pipeline to underpin a national citizen science honey monitoring scheme. MethodsX, 8. 101303. ISSN 22150161 doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2021.101303

Abstract/Summary

Worldwide honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) are one of the most widely kept domesticated animals, supporting domestic and commercial livelihoods through the production of honey and wax, as well as in the delivery of pollination services to crops. Quantifying which plant species are foraged upon by honeybees provides insights into their nutritional status as well as patterns of landscape scale habitat utilization. Here we outline a rapid and reproducible methodology for identifying environmental DNA (eDNA) originating principally from pollen grains suspended within honey. The process is based on a DNA extraction incorporating vacuum filtration prior to universal eukaryotic internal transcribed spacer 2 region (ITS2) amplicon generation, sequencing and identification. To provide a pre-cursor to sequence phylotyping, we outline systems for error-corrected processing amplicon sequence variant abundance tables that removes chimeras. This methodology underpins the new UK National Honey Monitoring Scheme.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/97477
Identification Number/DOI	10.1016/j.mex.2021.101303
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Biomedical Sciences Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Publisher	Elsevier
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item