Environmental DNA provides higher resolution assessment of riverine biodiversity and ecosystem function via spatio-temporal nestedness and turnover partitioning

Abstract Rapidly assessing biodiversity is essential for environmental monitoring; however, traditional approaches are limited in the scope needed most ecological systems. Environmental DNA (eDNA) based assessment offers enhanced biodiversity, while also increasing sampling efficiency and reducing processing time, compared to methods. Here we investigated effects of landuse seasonality on headwater community richness functional diversity, via spatio-temporal dynamics, using both eDNA sampling. We found that provided greater resolution dynamics time space, Community was seasonally linked, peaking spring summer, with temporal turnover having a effect composition localized nestedness. Overall, our ecosystem function shows formation driven by regional resource availability, implying management requirements should be considered. Our findings show powerful, rapid effective strategy enables complex studies diversity function, previously infeasible