Biology subjects

Moran-Luis, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Moran-Luis, M..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Globally unified analysis of riverine eDNA reveals common associations of fish biodiversity with drainage characteristics

Freshwater biodiversity is declining at a pace that outstrips the capacity of existing monitoring approaches both in temporal and spatial dimensions, highlighting the urgent need for rapid and scalable assessment and attribution of biodiversity states and changes. Here, we present one of the first global assessments and unified analyses of riverine fish biodiversity using environmental DNA (eDNA) collected from 1818 sites across 113 river systems. We quantified species richness, functional redundancy, phylogenetic diversity, and genetic sequence diversity, and related them to drainage characteristics. Our results showed that eDNA effectively captured global patterns of multi-faceted riverine fish biodiversity and disentangled the roles of climate and human activities in shaping biodiversity-area relationships. Catchments in warmer climates consistently enhanced biodiversity accumulation with area, while higher human activity intensity weakened this scaling. Species richness, functional, and genetic sequence diversity exhibited stronger negative responses to human activities in larger catchments. In contrast, phylogenetic diversity showed the strongest negative effects in smaller catchments with these impacts diminishing as catchment area increased, highlighting the facet-dependent nature of biodiversity responses to environmental gradients. Our findings demonstrate the power of eDNA-based datasets for harmonized, multi-faceted biodiversity assessments, offering a scalable approach for detecting and attributing biodiversity change and informing conservation strategies under accelerating global change.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

Integrated reanalysis of global riverine fish eDNA datasets shows robustness and congruence of biodiversity conclusions

The analysis of environmental DNA (eDNA) has revolutionized biodiversity assessments in aquatic ecosystems, enabling non-invasive monitoring of fish communities across diverse regions. However, the global comparability of these eDNA datasets remains ambiguous due heterogeneous sampling protocols and bioinformatic workflows across studies, particularly regarding the robustness of their conclusions on biodiversity assessments. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis of 58 riverine fish eDNA metabarcoding datasets, covering 1,818 sampling sites worldwide, to evaluate the robustness of eDNA-derived biodiversity patterns. We found that species richness estimates and metrics of community structure derived under a common bioinformatic workflow were overall consistent with those of original analyses, despite the relatively high variability in bioinformatic analyses in the respective original studies. Contrastingly, congruence of species identity varied more extensively across datasets, mostly reflecting different completeness and regional relevance of reference databases. Restricting taxonomic assignment to basin-specific species pools improved species identification accuracy, while datasets lacking publicly accessible or well-curated reference data were more prone to mismatches. Year of sampling had a positive effect on taxonomic congruence, such that more recent studies showed increased robustness, also reflecting improved reference database coverage and enhanced species-level identification over time and overall method congruence in more recent years. Overall, the suitability and potential of eDNA for global biodiversity monitoring is corroborating overall robust biodiversity estimates, irrespective of the bioinformatic approaches. Our study underlines the effectiveness and need of further harmonization of bioinformatic workflows and strengthened region-specific reference databases for improved taxonomic resolution and comparability across studies.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Tracking movements of an endangered bird using mark-recapture based on DNA-tagging

Knowing the location and movements of individuals at various temporal and spatial scales is an important facet of behaviour and ecology. In threatened populations, movements that would ensure adequate genetic flow and long term population viability are often challenged by habitat fragmentation. It is also in those endangered populations where capturing and handling individuals to equip them with transmitters or to obtain tissue samples may present additional logistical challenges. DNA-tagging, i.e. individual identification of samples obtained via non-invasive approaches, can reveal certain movement patterns. We used faecal material genetically assigned to individuals to indirectly track movements of a large-bodied, endangered forest bird, Cantabrian capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus cantabricus), for three consecutive mating seasons. We identified 127 individuals, and registered movements of 70 of them (22 females, 48 males). Most movements were relatively short for capercaillie, mostly concentrated around display areas. We did not find differences in movement distances between females and males within mating seasons, or between them. Several longer, inter-valley movements up to 9.9 km of planimetric distance linked distant display areas, showing that both females and males of Cantabrian capercaillie were able to move through the landscape, complementing previous studies on gene flow. Those longer movements may be taking birds outside of the study area, and into historical capercaillie territories, which still include substantial forest cover. Tracking animals via DNA tagging, particularly those on endangered populations, showed clear advantages like non-intrusiveness and potential for sample sizes much larger than via direct handling. However, it also misses out on direct observation and natural history, which would provide key information like social status and timing of movements.

zoology↗