Integration of high throughput sequencing technologies into bio-tracking, establishment of a local database and development of working-specific unix-based bioinformatic workflow

All ecosystems maintain life in a balance with their biodiversity. However, these ecosystems are destroyed by anthropogenic effects such as overpopulation, careless use of resources. Monitoring of the biodiversity of these ecosystems in the long term with fast, economic and standardized techniques has great importance for both conservation of species diversity and development of conservation strategies in the early stages of ecosystems destruction. In recent years, one of the most widely used molecular identification methods is DNA barcoding and environmental DNA. However, researches on the plant kingdom show that there are still gaps in the literature for these techniques, which are developed mostly in the animal kingdom. A consensus has not yet been reached for both the universal barcode region and the universal primers for barcoding of plants. In addition, plant species in different and / or transitional ecosystems show different results in studies and these ecosystem specific species have different needs for these analyses. In this study, a different perspective on plant-related issues and the fact that the raw data obtained from advancing sequencing technologies is encountered as a relatively unknown area for manyresearchers and users led to the creation of a local database through DNA barcoding for aquatic plant species in the rare ecosystem of İğneada Longoz Forests. Biodiversity was analyzed using the eDNA metabarcoding technique, and a plant-specific bioinformatics workflow was optimized. Furthermore, this study determined the effectiveness of biodiversity monitoring in aquatic plant species.