A comprehensive assessment of non-indigenous species requires the combination of multi-marker eDNA metabarcoding with classical taxonomic identification

作者：Stefano Varrella, Silvia Livi, Cinzia Corinaldesi, Luca Castriota, Teresa Maggio, Pietro Vivona, Massimo Pindo, S. Fava, Roberto Danovaro, Antonio Dell’Anno · 发表于：Environment International · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.envint.2025.109489 · 被引用次数：8 · 研究领域：Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies、Identification and Quantification in Food、Marine Ecology and Invasive Species

• Non-indigenous species (NIS) threats marine biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. • 31 genetic signatures of NIS were identified through eDNA metabarcoding. • Only 4 NIS were identified by both morphological and molecular approaches. • eDNA metabarcoding detects genetic signatures of NIS in the early life stage. • NIS detection requires both taxonomic and molecular approaches. In marine environment, non-indigenous species (NIS) can alter natural habitats and cause biodiversity loss with important consequences for ecosystems and socio-economic activities. With more than 1000 NIS introduced over the last century, the Mediterranean Sea is one of the most threatened regions worldwide, requiring an early identification of newly entered alien species for a proper environmental management. Here, we carried out environmental-DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding analyses, using multiple molecular markers (i.e., 18S rRNA , COI , and rbcL ) and different genetic databases (i.e., NCBI, PR2, SILVA, MIDORI2, MGZDB, and BOLD), on seawater and sediment samples collected on a seasonal basis in three Mediterranean ports located in the North Adriatic, Ionian and Tyrrhenian Sea to identify marine species, and particularly NIS. The use of the multi-marker eDNA metabarcoding allowed the identification of a higher number of species compared to the morphological analyses (1484 vs. 752 species), with a minor portion of species shared by both approaches. Overall, only 4 NIS were consistently identified by bot...