GUYASOILeDNA: a trans-kingdom and functional eDNA dataset on soil biodiversity from diverse land-cover types in French Guiana
Soil biodiversity represents approximately 60% of all described species on Earth and plays a critical role in terrestrial ecosystem functioning. However, knowledge of tropical soil biota and their roles remains highly fragmentary, especially in hyperdiverse tropical regions that remain largely undersampled relative to their temperate counterparts. Recent non-invasive methods, such as environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, have enabled large-scale data collection across kingdoms of life and habitats, including understudied compartments such as soils. Here, GUYASOILeDNA is presented as the first large-scale eDNA metabarcoding dataset of tropical soil Bacteria (16S), Eukaryota (18S), Fungi (ITS1), and Insecta (16S) from French Guiana. This dataset describes the distribution of 69,881 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) in 1,410 soil samples collected across a variety of forest types, savannas, pastures, and urban areas. In addition, functional annotations based on trophic guild assignments are provided for 51% of the OTUs. This dataset can be used for meta-analyses, exploring soil taxonomic and functional diversity in relation to environmental factors, studying spatial associations among soil groups, and informing protected area management, among other applications. While this dataset represents an important first step toward understanding soil biodiversity in the region, it also reveals key gaps that may guide future research.
Authors
- Shengli Tao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2145-4736)
- Irene Calderón‐Sanou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4608-1187)
- Eliane Louisanna (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2082-5726)
- Anne‐Sophie Benoiston (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9446-5703)
- Amaia Iribar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4709-648X)
- Finn Piatscheck (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1796-6288)
- Gaëtan Rongier
- Heidy Schimann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9139-920X)
- Jérôme Murienne (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1474-7829)
- Frédéric Petitclerc (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2015-1258)
- Valérie Troispoux (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1118-1367)
- Jérôme Orivel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5636-3228)
- Jérôme Chave (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7766-1347)
- Lucie Zinger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3400-5825)
- Marilou Hircq
- Uxue Suescun-Darias
- Jérémy Raynaud
- Fabian J. Fischer
Institutions
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (FR)
- Université de Bordeaux (FR)
- Ifremer (FR)
- Peking University (CN)
- University of French Guiana (GF)
- Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR)
- UMR BIOdiversity, GEnes & Communities (FR)
- Ecologie des Forêts de Guyane (GF)
- Institut Génétique, Reproduction et Développement (FR)
- Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (FR)
- Laboratoire écologie, évolution, interactions des systèmes amazoniens (GF)
- Centre de Recherche sur la Biodiversité et l'Environnement (FR)
- Université de Toulouse (FR)
- Technical University of Munich (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Metabarcoding and Metagenomics
- Published
- 2026-09-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3897/mbmg.10.188340
- Primary Topic
- Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche