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Turkish Journal of Zoology

Abstract

The common sunbleak (Leucaspius delineatus) is an invasive fish found in Siberian  water bodies, the trophic interactions and impact on local ecosystems of which  remain poorly understood. Traditional diet analyses are limited by the mechanical  damage to the prey. For the present study, therefore, we employed DNA  metabarcoding of the cytochrome c oxidase I (cox1) gene to analyze the digestive  tract contents of the common sunbleak obtained from Irkutsk Reservoir. Our analysis  revealed 53 operational taxonomic units (OTUs), with sequences of amphibiotic  insects (58.66%) and fish (34.10%) being the most prevalent. A significant proportion  of the fish DNA, including sequences from Baikal omul, can be attributed to  environmental DNA (eDNA) derived from mucus, scales, or feces that were ingested  directly or indirectly with detritus. The common sunbleak’s summer diet is based  primarily on amphibiotic insects, although molecular data are confounded by the  coingestion of eDNA. The present study assesses the ecological impact of the  common sunbleak, and underscores the critical importance of differentiating between  active predation and eDNA in dietary metabarcoding studies.

Author ORCID Identifier

ELENA DZYUBA: 0000-0002-0769-694X

YURIJ BUKIN: 0000-0002-4534-3846

BAKHTIAR BOGDANOV: 0000-0003-3989-8690

YULIA SAPOZHNIKOVA: 0000-0002-3584-0750

NATALIA DENIKINA: 0000-0002-3952-3277

DOI

10.55730/1300-0179.3247

Keywords

Biodiversity, prey items, cox1, invasive species, Leucaspius delineatus, next-generation sequencing

First Page

23

Last Page

36

Publisher

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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