RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Airborne environmental DNA metabarcoding for the monitoring of terrestrial insects - a proof of concept JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2021.07.26.453860 DO 10.1101/2021.07.26.453860 A1 Roger, Fabian A1 Ghanavi, Hamid A1 Danielsson, Natalie A1 Wahlberg, Niklas A1 Löndahl, Jakob A1 Pettersson, Lars B. A1 Andersson, Georg K.S. A1 Olén, Niklas Boke A1 Clough, Yann YR 2021 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/07/27/2021.07.26.453860.abstract AB Biodiversity is in decline due to human land use, exploitation, and climate change. To be able to counteract this alarming trend it is paramount to closely monitor biodiversity at global scales. Because this is practically impossible with traditional methods, the last decade has seen a strong push for solutions. In aquatic ecosystems the monitoring of species from environmental DNA (eDNA) has emerged as one of the most powerful tools at our disposal but in terrestrial ecosystems the power of eDNA for monitoring has so far been hampered by the local scale of the samples. In this study we report the first attempt to detect insects from airborne eDNA. We compare our results to two traditional insect monitoring projects (1) using light trapping for moth monitoring and (2) transect counts for the monitoring of butterflies and wild bees. While we failed to detect many of the same species monitored with the traditional methods, airborne eDNA metabarcoding revealed DNA from from six classes of Arthropods, and twelve order of Insects - including representatives from all of the four largest orders: Diptera (flies), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), Coleoptera (beetles) and Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants). We also recovered DNA from nine species of vertebrates, including frogs, birds and mammals as well as from 12 other phyla. We suggest that airborne eDNA has the potential to become a powerful tool for terrestrial biodiversity monitoring, with many impactful applications including the monitoring of pests, invasive or endangered species or disease vectors.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.