Table 3 Species detection levels in the analysed mock communities.

From: Mock community experiments can inform on the reliability of eDNA metabarcoding data: a case study on marine phytoplankton

Taxon

N

Mean cell number

Mean read number

Pearson Ra

Ratio (R/C)

False negatives

False negatives > 100 reads

Alexandrium minutum

21

2.30 × 105

2.64 × 104

0.63

0.123

0

0

Alexandrium pacificum

12

6.84 × 104

1.14 × 104

0.89

0.181

0

0

Scrippsiella spp.

18

1.32 × 105

7.39 × 102

0.62

0.006

0

1

Chaetoceros socialis

21

3.02 × 105

3.68 × 102

0.54

0.001

4

8

Pseudo-nitzschia spp.

12

1.27 × 105

8.14 × 101

0.78

0.0004

2

7

Skeletonema marinoi

12

8.98 × 104

1.98 × 101

0.55

0.0002

3

11

Thalassionema frauenfeldii

8

5.09 × 104

5.44 × 102

0.94

0.0106

0

0

  1. For each taxon, the overall number of expected occurrences (N, based on the pre-defined community compositions) was reported together with the mean cell number, the mean number of metabarcoding sequence reads, the Pearson’s correlation coefficients between number of cells and reads, the R/C ratio (total number of reads divided by total number of cells; see Materials and methods), and the number of false negatives (with and without the 100 reads cut-off).
  2. aStatistically significant correlations were reported in bold.
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