High Quality, Granular, Timely, Trustworthy and Efficient Vertebrate Species Distribution Data Across a 30,000 km <sup>2</sup> Protected Area Complex
The routine generation of species distribution data at scale remains a challenge. We used aquatic environmental DNA metabarcoding to sample vertebrate species across the 30,000 km<sup>2</sup> Gaoligongshan region along the China-Myanmar border. In just 56 calendar days (33 researcher-field-days + 69 researcher-lab-days), we detected 389 vertebrate species, of which 35 are Red-Listed. We introduce the 'eDNA-aware' OccPlus occupancy model, which accounts for false-negative and false-positive error in the field and lab. OccPlus leverages the taxonomic breadth of eDNA datasets by using ordination to estimate species occupancies. We recover known biogeographic patterns and find that native terrestrial and fish species have higher occupancies inside protected areas while domesticated species and non-native fishes have higher occupancies outside them. Our study demonstrates how eDNA metabarcoding can obtain high-quality, granular, timely, trustworthy and efficient species distribution data to facilitate nature conservation and restoration.
Authors
- Jim E. Griffin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4828-7368)
- Alex Diana (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8130-2988)
- Viorel D. Popescu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7138-0774)
- Douglas W. Yu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8551-5609)
- Xueyou Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1991-8757)
- Jing Che (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-1893-8427)
- Mingjie Luo
- F Dong
- Chunying Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3122-7684)
- Ru Bai
- Zhongbin Yu
- Fei Wu
- Xiaoyong Chen
- Eleni Matechou
- Kai Wang
- Shuwei Liu
- Xuelong Jiang
- Chenyang Yao
- Yinqiu Ji
- Tingting Yin
Institutions
- University of Essex (GB)
- University of East Anglia (GB)
- University of Bucharest (RO)
- Queen Mary University of London (GB)
- Kunming Institute of Zoology (CN)
- Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department (MM)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- University College London (GB)
- Columbia University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Ecology Letters
- Published
- 2025-12-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70302
- Primary Topic
- Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- UK Research and Innovation
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Natural Environment Research Council
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Division of Environmental Biology