Accurate assessment of larval community composition in spawning areas is essential for fisheries management and conservation but is often hampered by the cryptic nature of many larvae, which renders them difficult to identify morphologically. Metabarcoding is a rapid and cost‐effective method to monitor early life stages for management and environmental impact assessment purposes but its quantitative capability is under discussion. We compared metabarcoding with traditional morphological identification to evaluate taxonomic precision and reliability of abundance estimates, using 332 fish larvae from multinet hauls (0–50 m depth) collected at 14 offshore sampling sites in the Irish and Celtic seas. To improve quantification accuracy (relative abundance estimates), the amount of tissue for each specimen was standardized and mitochondrial primers (12S gene) with conserved binding sites were used. Relative family abundance estimated from metabarcoding reads and morphological assessment were positively correlated, as well as taxon richness (R_S = 0.81, P = 0.007) and diversity (R_S = 0.90, P = 0.002). Spatial patterns of community composition did not differ significantly between metabarcoding and morphological assessments. Our results show that DNA metabarcoding of bulk tissue samples can be used to monitor changes in fish larvae abundance and community composition. This represents a feasible, efficient, and faster alternative to morphological methods that can be applied to terrestrial and aquatic habitats.

中文翻译：

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使用散装样品的超条形码对产卵区鱼幼虫群落组成进行定量评估

对产卵区幼虫群落组成的准确评估对于渔业管理和养护至关重要，但常常因许多幼虫的隐秘性而受阻，这使它们很难从形态上进行鉴定。元条形码是一种快速，经济高效的方法，可以监测生命的早期阶段，以进行管理和环境影响评估，但是其定量能力正在讨论中。我们使用从爱尔兰和凯尔特海的14个近海采样点采集的332个来自多网捕捞（0至50 m深度）的多网捕捞幼虫，将元条形码与传统形态学识别进行了比较，以评估分类学的准确性和可靠性。为了提高量化准确性（相对丰度估算值），将每个标本的组织量标准化，并使用具有保守结合位点的线粒体引物（12S基因）。通过元条形码读取和形态学评估估计的相对家庭丰度与分类单元丰富度呈正相关（R _S  = 0.81，P  = 0.007）和分集（R _S  = 0.90，P  = 0.002）。元条形码和形态学评估之间的社区组成的空间格局没有显着差异。我们的结果表明，散装组织样本的DNA metabarcoding可用于监测鱼幼虫的丰度和群落组成的变化。这代表了一种可应用于陆生和水生生境的形态学方法的可行，高效且快速的替代方法。