Application of eDNA Metabarcoding for Detecting Anura on a Tropical Island

As anuran biodiversity quickly declines, it is important to understand local patterns of anuran occurrence. However, the limitations of traditional sampling methods make anuran biodiversity surveys inadequate. Tropical environments are rich in anuran species, which makes biodiversity measurements more difficult. Therefore, it is important to develop a rapid, inexpensive and nondestructive method to measure anuran biodiversity in tropical environments. We used eDNA metabarcoding to measure anuran diversity at 288 sites in 18 regions of Hainan Island. We also used traditional methods and compared the results with those obtained through the eDNA metabarcoding methods. We detected 9 anuran species by traditional sampling methods. We produced 626 million reads by eDNA metabarcoding and assigned them to 15 anuran species. Therefore, eDNA metabarcoding can be used for rapid and large-scale anuran biodiversity surveys.