Metabarcoding as an effective complement of microscopic studies in revealing the composition of the diatom community – a case study of an oxbow lake of Tisza River (Hungary) with the description of a new Mayamaea species

Abstract

Diatoms are valuable bioindicators and their traditional classification and identification are mainly based on the morphological characteristics of their frustules. However, in recent years, DNA-based methods have been proposed and are rapidly growing in the scientific literature as a complementary tool to assess the ecological status of freshwaters. Diatom-based ecological status assessment uses indices calculated from sensitivity and tolerance values as well as relative abundance of species. Correct assessment requires an accurate identification of species. In the present study, diatom assemblages of an oxbow lake were investigated using light and scanning electron microscopy as well as metabarcoding using rbcL marker, and the identification results were compared, intending to match barcode sequences of species that are currently missing in the diatom reference database. The investigated oxbow is an important wetland for bird conservation, although it is impacted by land use. Taxon lists based on morphology and metabarcoding considerably differed when bioinformatics analysis involved DADA2 pipeline with Diat.barcode database. Previously unknown sequence variants of four pennate species were found with additional BLAST search. Using phylogeny and p-distance calculations sequences could be matched to three small-celled naviculoid species that were found under a microscope. One of them was found to be a new species of the genus Mayamaea and was described as a new species, Mayamaea ectorii. Additionally, spatial distribution maps for several small-celled naviculoid species are provided for the Hungarian territory.