Biodiversity across the globe continues to decline threatening highly valuable ecosystem resources.  Rapid assessment and monitoring methodologies are required to understand the origin of the threats and enable a conservation plan. Kuwait has an arid desert ecosystem with a small flora of only 400 species. The biodiversity and ecosystem are endangered by environmental factors, overgrazing, and human activities. Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies allowed us to identify plants to species level and distinguish plant diversity found in soil environmental DNA (eDNA) samples. The molecular investigation methods assisted in identifying the plant diversity found below-ground level and comparing it with that above-ground, using eDNA samples collected from both species rich and poor habitats in Kuwait by applying high-throughput sequencing methods. This study contributes towards the future of molecular ecology assessment for biomonitoring the diversity and applicable in ecological restoration projects to conserve threatened habitats.

Environmental DNA using NGS techniques provide an in-depth molecular biodiversity identification

ACS Fall 2021

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