Effect of environmental DNA sampling resolution in detecting nearshore fish biodiversity compared to capture surveys.

Sampling and sequencing marine environmental DNA (eDNA) provides a tool that can increase our ability to monitor biodiversity, but movement and mixing of eDNA after release from organisms before collection could affect our inference of species distributions. To assess how conditions at differing spatial scales influence the inferred species richness and compositional turnover, we conducted a paired eDNA metabarcoding and capture (beach seining) survey of fishes on the coast of British Columbia. We found more taxa were typically detected using eDNA compared to beach seining.