Journal
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
Volume 833, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155093
Keywords
Benthic foraminifera; Metabarcoding; Coastal areas; Environmental quality assessment; Kuwait Bay; Benthic foraminifera; Metabarcoding; Coastal areas; Environmental quality assessment; Kuwait Bay
Categories
Funding
- Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) [EM084C]
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation [3.3-ITA-1203503-HFST-P]
- Kuwait Institutes for Scientific Research (KISR)
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The rapid urbanization and industrialization in Kuwait have led to the degradation of water and sediment quality in the coastal marine ecosystems. This study investigates the ecological response of benthic foraminifera to environmental stress in Kuwait Bay and compares the traditional morphological approach to the innovative eDNA metabarcoding for evaluating the ecological quality status (EcoQS). The results show that both approaches reflect the environmental stress gradient in the bay and the metabarcoding approach has advantages over the conventional morphological approach.
The rapid urbanization and industrialization of Kuwait and the consequent effluent discharges into marine environments have resulted in a degradation of water and sediment quality in the coastal marine ecosystems such as in the Kuwait Bay. This study investigates the ecological response of benthic foraminifera (protists) to environmental stress in the Kuwait Bay. The traditional morphological approach was compared to the innovative environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding to evaluate the ecological quality status (EcoQS). Forty-six surface sediment samples were collected from selected stations in the Kuwait Bay. To detect the pollution gradient, environmental parameters from water (e.g., salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen) and sediment (e.g., grain-size, trace metals, total organic carbon, total petroleum hydrocarbons) were measured at each station. Although the foraminiferal assemblages were different in the morphological and molecular datasets, the species turnover was congruent and statistically significant. Diversity-based biotic indices derived from both morphological and metabarcoding approaches, reflect the environmental stress gradient (i.e., organic and metal contaminations) in the Kuwait Bay. The lowest values of EcoQS (i.e., bad to poor) are found in the innermost part (i.e., Sulaibikhat Bay and Ras Kazmah), while higher EcoQS values occur in the outer part of the bay. This study constitutes the first attempt to apply the foraminiferal metabarcoding to assess the EcoQS within the Arabian Gulf and presents its advantages compared to the conventional morphological approach.
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