eDNA (Meta) barcoding per il monitoraggio dei pesci d'acqua dolce del Lazio

Assessing and monitoring the distribution and abundance of fish species is crucial for their effective management and conservation. However, traditional sampling of freshwater fishes is relatively invasive, costly, time-consuming, and prone to taxonomical misidentification. Innovative (meta)barcoding techniques applied to environmental DNA (eDNA, i.e. the DNA released into the water and soil by organisms) may partly circumvent such limitations while improving taxa detection and identification. Here, we test a bio-monitoring approach based on eDNA barcoding/metabarcoding from water samples, to assess the presence/absence of fish species and infer their abundance in selected Latium watercourses. The effectiveness of such an approach is validated using traditional sampling (i.e. electrofishing) and fish tank experiments. Here, we show the preliminary results of this approach, which will be useful for the definition of conservation actions for endangered native species and for setting up an early warning system to minimize the spread of invasive alien ones. Our work is part of the PRIN project “FreshFish – eDNA: biomonitoring of inland water fish species richness through environmental DNA barcoding and metabarcoding”.