Introduction

Biodiversity monitoring is the assessment of biological states within the ecosystem with the goals of monitoring changes, disturbances and recovery (Duley et al. 2023).  The need for monitoring increases in both scale and frequency of observations due to continual land use and environmental changes on a global scale (Baird and Hajibabaei 2012). Most surveys employ methods based on conventional morphological methodology, techniques that rely on a declining profession of taxonomic experts (Banerjee et al. 2022; Beng and Corlett 2020; Hajibabaei et al. 2016; Hopkins and Freckleton 2002). Conventional field-based methodology also increases the likelihood of unintentional transfer of invasives, destruction of habitat and introduced biases based on survey protocol or density of vegetation (Beng and Corlett 2020; Cristescu and Hebert 2018; Dennett and Nielsen 2019). These visual deductive methods have high sampling costs, time-consuming microscopy-based analysis and relatively high rates of misidentification or failure of identification due to phenotypic plasticity, juvenile, ephemeral, rare or cryptic species (Banerjee et al. 2022; Cristescu and Hebert 2018; Dennett and Nielsen 2019; Hajibabaei et al. 2016).

DNA based methodology may be poised to overcome some of these issues, facilitating the comparison and compilation of data across projects in a more efficient and standardized process (Dickie et al. 2018; Ruppert, Kline, and Rahman 2019). Metabarcoding (using eDNA or community sampling) in particular has the potential to be a robust tool to describe, model and predict environmental structure and biodiversity (Ruppert, Kline, and Rahman 2019). Metabarcoding characterizes a community of different species from a collected sample by using a universal barcode, or specific gene segment, to link the multiple organisms to species identification (Acharya-Patel et al. 2023). With the introduction of novel technologies, ecologists and managers may be able to overcome some of these biases and imperfections. However, there are many concerns that need to be sufficiently controlled within genetic methodologies. This includes an adequate and extensive barcode library, consistent, standardized and sterile sampling methods with technicians that can at least identify that there are different species within the sampling area, lab methodology that can be used for a broad spectrum of species in the face of diverse potential DNA amplification inhibitors, and a clear and concise bioinformatic pipeline (Dickie et al. 2018; Hakimzadeh et al. 2023; Kolter and Gemeinholzer 2021; Pascher, Švara, and Jungmeier 2022). 

By collecting vascular plant biodiversity data using different methodologies, we are better inclined to determine where DNA metabarcoding might fit into the monitoring process. By highlighting these novel approaches in comparison to conventional methods we will be able to close the gap in understanding the mosaic of species within an environment. Therefore, a key objective is to compare conventional morphological based surveys with molecular methods to understand and assess the trade-offs between molecular and morphological methodology for monitoring vegetation. This should highlight a novel approach to identify and understand the mosaic of species within an environment and what tools we can use to monitor biodiversity. 

Research Objective:

1. Compare different methodologies for collecting vegetation biodiversity data, determining whether there is a difference in species composition dependent on methodology. 

 We found that  that DNA-based methodologies, will detect a broader range of vascular plant species compared to conventional surveys. There will potentially be observed differences in species hypotheses between morphological and community DNA methods, due to variations in sampling techniques and detections of different components of the plant community.