Table 1 A comparison of DNA-based techniques

Metabarcoding^13,29,32,33

Widely trialled for biodiversity and ecological assessment.

Provides cost and time-effective analysis.

Successful results with low-biomass input

Extensive reference databases are required to find suitable marker regions within candidate genomes.

Species identification is reliant on curated marker catalogues.

Output is limited to barcode regions.

PCR introduces amplification bias, resulting in skewed abundance data.

PCR hindered by contaminants, additives, and degraded DNA

Metagenomics^36,38,39,40

Sequence data is all-encompassing.

No reliance on PCR.

Taxa recovery is not limited by primers.

Novel species identification.

Reference genomes are needed for classification.

Existing reference libraries are limited and often incomplete, especially for eukaryotes.

Analysis may be expensive and time-consuming.