DNA Metabarcoding as a Tool for Disentangling Food Webs in Agroecosystems

Sow, Ahmadou Bamba; Haran, Julien; Benoit, Laure; Galan, Maxime; Brévault, Thierry

doi:10.3390/insects11050294

Cited by 28 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…stoichiometry). We used carbon and nitrogen as nutrients because they are essential elements in terrestrial ecosystems (Attiwill & Adams, 1993), biotic processes are intimately involved in their cycling through ecosystems (Coleman et al, 1983) and they are commonly studied in nutrient cycling studies (Koltz et al, 2018;Shi et al, 2016). Most studies we screened reported decomposition dynamics of plant litter as mass loss or remaining; thus, we only used studies where proportion mass loss of initial litter weight could be calculated.…”

Section: Literature Survey and Data Extractionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Invertebrate functional traits and terrestrial nutrient cycling: Insights from a global meta‐analysis

McCary

Schmitz

2021

Journal of Animal Ecology

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1. Functional traits are useful for characterizing variation in community and ecosystem dynamics. Most advances in trait-based ecology to date centre on plant functional traits, although there is an increasing recognition that animal traits are also key contributors to processes operating at the community or ecosystem scale.2. Terrestrial invertebrates are incredibly diverse and ubiquitous animals with important roles in nutrient cycling. Despite their widespread influence on ecosystem processes, we currently lack a synthetic understanding of how invertebrate functional traits affect terrestrial nutrient cycling.3. We present a meta-analysis of 511 paired observations from 122 papers that examined how invertebrate functional traits affected litter decomposition rates, nitrogen pools and litter C:N ratios. Based on the available data, we specifically assessed the effects of feeding mode (bioturbation, detritus shredding, detritus grazing, leaf chewing, leaf piercing, ambush predators, active hunting predators) and body size (macro-and micro-invertebrates) on nutrient cycling.4. The effects of invertebrates on terrestrial nutrient cycling varied according to functional trait. The inclusion of both macro-(≥2 mm) and micro-invertebrates (<2 mm) increased litter decomposition by 20% and 19%, respectively. All detritivorous feeding modes enhanced litter decomposition rates, with bioturbators, detritus shredders and detritus grazers increasing decomposition by 28%, 22% and 15%, respectively. Neither herbivore feeding mode (e.g. leaf chewers and leaf piercers) nor predator hunting mode (ambush and active hunting) affected decomposition. We also revealed that bioturbators and detritus grazers increased soil nitrogen availability by 99% and 70%, respectively, and that leaf-chewing herbivores had a weak effect on litterfall stoichiometry via reducing C:N ratios by 11%.5. Although functional traits might be useful predictors of ecosystem processes, our findings suggest context-dependent effects of invertebrate traits on terrestrial nutrient cycling. Detritivore functional traits (i.e. bioturbators, detritus shredders and detritus grazers) are more consistent with increased rates of nutrient cycling, whereas our currently characterized predator and herbivore traits are less predictive. Future research is needed to identify, standardize and deliberately study the impacts of invertebrate functional traits on nutrient cycling in hopes of revealing the key functional traits governing ecosystem functioning worldwide.

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Section: Literature Survey and Data Extractionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Invertebrate functional traits and terrestrial nutrient cycling: Insights from a global meta‐analysis

McCary

Schmitz

2021

Journal of Animal Ecology

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“…Our effort yielded 3,378 unique associations in 5,564 records between 1,776 carabid and 676 fungal species. Although rapidly developing molecular methods have largely facilitated the mapping of complex interaction networks in ecological studies 25 – 27 , due to the historic nature of our dataset, most of the records rely on traditional taxonomical identification. Yet, 16 records were based purely on metabarcoding studies; comments linked to these associations clearly identify them.…”

Section: Background and Summarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Associations between carabid beetles and fungi in the light of 200 years of published literature

et al. 2021

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Describing and conserving ecological interactions woven into ecosystems is one of the great challenges of the 21st century. Here, we present a unique dataset compiling the biotic interactions between two ecologically and economically important taxa: ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and fungi. The resulting dataset contains the carabid-fungus associations collected from 392 scientific publications, 129 countries, mostly from the Palearctic region, published over a period of 200 years. With an updated taxonomy to match the currently accepted nomenclature, 3,378 unique associations among 5,564 records were identified between 1,776 carabid and 676 fungal taxa. Ectoparasitic Laboulbeniales were the most frequent fungal group associated with carabids, especially with Trechinae. The proportion of entomopathogens was low. Three different formats of the data have been provided along with an interactive data digest platform for analytical purposes. Our database summarizes the current knowledge on biotic interactions between insects and fungi, while offering a valuable resource to test large-scale hypotheses on those interactions.

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“…Thus, in the last decade, metabarcoding has emerged as an invaluable molecular tool for characterising diet breadth in polyphagous predators. It offers unique opportunities for deciphering trophic interactions within food webs 61 . Nonetheless, this gain in trophic network understanding comes at the cost of accuracy and sensitivity for target species detection 62 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Molecular assays to reliably detect and quantify predation on a forest pest in bats faeces

Baroja

Garin

Vallejo

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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Targeted molecular methods such as conventional PCR (cPCR) and quantitative PCR (qPCR), combined with species-specific primers and probes, are widely applied for pest species detection. Besides, the potential of qPCR to quantify DNA in samples makes it an invaluable molecular tool to infer the predation levels on specific prey by analysing predators’ stools. Nevertheless, studies on the diet of bats failed to find any empirical relationship, and it remains to be evaluated. Thus, we developed and evaluated two species-specific PCR assays to detect and quantify DNA of a major forest pest, the pine processionary, Thaumetopoea pityocampa, in bats’ faeces. Further, we empirically compared a range of different known DNA concentrations (input) of the target species mixed with mocks and bat faecal samples against DNA abundances yielded by qPCR (output) for a quantitative assessment. Overall, cPCR showed a lower detection rate than qPCR, but augmenting the replicate effort from one to three replicates led to a greater increase in the detection rate of the cPCR (from 57 to 80%) than the qPCR (from 90 to 99%). The quantitative experiment results showed a highly significant correlation between the input and output DNA concentrations (t = 10.84, p < 0.001) with a mean slope value of 1.05, indicating the accuracy of our qPCR assay to estimate DNA abundance of T. pityocampa in bat faeces. The framework of this study can be taken as a model to design similar assays applicable to other species of interest, such as agricultural pests or insects of public health concern.

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DNA Metabarcoding as a Tool for Disentangling Food Webs in Agroecosystems

Cited by 28 publications

References 70 publications

Invertebrate functional traits and terrestrial nutrient cycling: Insights from a global meta‐analysis

Invertebrate functional traits and terrestrial nutrient cycling: Insights from a global meta‐analysis

Associations between carabid beetles and fungi in the light of 200 years of published literature

Molecular assays to reliably detect and quantify predation on a forest pest in bats faeces

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