Wednesday June 10, 2026
Phys —
Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding has emerged as a powerful tool for monitoring aquatic biodiversity, enabling researchers to identify fish species from traces of DNA found in water without using invasive techniques on fish. Although this technique is gaining traction, it introduces certain biases and uncertainties at various stages, thereby affecting the production of reliable eDNA results. This challenge underscores the need to understand the technique’s strengths and limitations.
Against this backdrop, in a new synthesis review, Dr. Chang-Bum Jeong, Dr. Bhavya Kachiprath, Mr. In-Cheol Yeo, Ms. Sung-Eun Hong, Ms. Harim Jeong and Mr. Kyu-Young Shim, all from the Department of Marine Science, Incheon National University, Republic of Korea, evaluated the performance of fish eDNA metabarcoding by analyzing 59 mock community data sets drawn from 30 independent studies. Mock communities are controlled experimental systems in which the exact species composition and DNA concentrations are known, providing a reliable benchmark for testing detection accuracy. The paper was published in the journal Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries.