The Biodiversity Assessment of Sediment Community in Balekambang Lake, Dieng Plateau, Indonesia, using Environmental DNA (eDNA) Metabarcoding Approach

A sediment community is vital for the health of the surrounding community. Microbes play an essential role in chemical cycling. Meanwhile, diatoms, unicellular photosynthetic algae found in the water bodies and sediments, are used as water bioindicators for their fast responses to changes in water quality. Assessing the sediment community is crucial to understanding ecosystem dynamic. With the newest technology in DNA identification, this research aims to identify the community in the Balekambang Lake, Dieng Plateau, Central Java, Indonesia. This preliminary study tested the Environmental DNA (eDNA) Metabarcoding method to determine the eukaryotes in the sediment community. This study utilized the High-Throughput Sequencing method to massively identify the organism communities in the sediment, targeting the 18S rRNA gene. This study captured millions of sequences, including Eukaryota, Excavata, Amoebozoa, Opisthokonta, Rhizaria, and Alveolata supergroups. This method identified 14 genera and 13 species of multicellular and unicellular organisms from the Balekambang Lake sediment samples. Although this study could not identify more organism taxa due to a high number of "unidentified" groups in the sampling area, the results show the importance of the eDNA Metabarcoding technique for biodiversity assessment in the sediments.