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Meta-Analysis
. 2022 Oct;22(7):2494-2505.
doi: 10.1111/1755-0998.13627. Epub 2022 May 22.

Systematic review and meta-analysis: Water type and temperature affect environmental DNA decay

Philip D Lamb  1 , Vera G Fonseca  2 , David L Maxwell  1 , Chibuzor C Nnanatu
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Systematic review and meta-analysis: Water type and temperature affect environmental DNA decay

Philip D Lamb et al. Mol Ecol Resour. 2022 Oct.

Abstract

Environmental DNA (eDNA) has been used in a variety of ecological studies and management applications. The rate at which eDNA decays has been widely studied but at present it is difficult to disentangle study-specific effects from factors that universally affect eDNA degradation. To address this, a systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted on aquatic eDNA studies. Analysis revealed eDNA decayed faster at higher temperatures and in marine environments (as opposed to freshwater). DNA type (mitochondrial or nuclear) and fragment length did not affect eDNA decay rate, although a preference for <200 bp sequences in the available literature means this relationship was not assessed with longer sequences (e.g. >800 bp). At present, factors such as ultraviolet light, pH, and microbial load lacked sufficient studies to feature in the meta-analysis. Moving forward, we advocate researching these factors to further refine our understanding of eDNA decay in aquatic environments.

Keywords: aquatic eDNA; ddPCR; eDNA concentration; eDNA degradation; qPCR; species detection.

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Conflict of interest statement

We have no conflicts of interest to report.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Forest plot showing summary of studies in the meta‐analysis including water‐type (H2O; F, freshwater; M, marine), DNA‐type (DNA; M, mitochondrial DNA; N, nuclear DNA; B, both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA), temperature (°C), fragment length (bp) and relative weighting in the meta‐analysis model (%). The large opaque points show weighted study‐wide estimates with 95% confidence intervals calculated using bootstrapping (k = 1000). Small, transparent, points show eDNA decay rates within a trial. DOIs of studies are available within Table S3
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
The effect of (a) DNA‐type, (b) Water‐type, (c) fragment size, and (d) temperature on eDNA decay rate. Please note that each point in the figure represents a trial within an experiment; trials within the same study will not be fully independent from one another. However, this nonindependence is accounted for in the meta‐analysis. Boxplots denote median value, lower and upper hinges show 25th and 75th percentile values, and whiskers show minimum (lower) and maximum (upper) values (up to 1.5 times IQR in both instances)
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Contoured funnel plot for the best fit multivariate multilevel mixed effect publication bias model. Each point is a study level with the effect size (decay rate). Statistical significance of a study is indicated by colour: light blue (p > .1), light green (p > .05), dark blue (p > .01), and light grey (p < .01)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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