Airborne environmental DNA metabarcoding detects more diversity, with less sampling effort, than a traditional plant community survey

Table 2 The most common species found for the eDNA metabarcoding reference library analysis in total for Events 9 and 21 separately, which correspond closest to the September and May traditional surveys respectively

Reference library metabarcoding most common species
Total	Event 9	Event 21
Prosopis glandulosa	Bouteloua gracilis	Prosopis glandulosa
Salsola tragus	Salsola tragus	Salsola tragus
Descurainia pinnata	Kochia scoparia	Descurainia pinnata
Bouteloua gracilis	Cynodon dactylon	Helenium amarum
Helenium amarum	Gutierrezia sarothrae	Laennecia coulteri
*Ulmus pumila*	Ambrosia psilostachya	Machaeranthera tanacetifolia
Kochia scoparia	Sporobolus cryptandrus	*Aphanostephus ramosissimus*
Laennecia coulteri	*Sorghum halepense*	Oxalis dillenii
Cynodon dactylon	Laennecia coulteri	Cynodon dactylon
Machaeranthera tanacetifolia	*Verbesina encelioides*	Ratibida columnifera

Species in bold represent species that were not found with the traditional surveying method for that respective survey

ISSN: 2730-7182