Comparing environmental DNA with whole pond survey to estimate the total biomass of fish species in ponds

Abstract Environmental DNA (eDNA) has recently been developed for detecting the distribution of macroorganisms in aquatic systems and for estimating biomass/abundance. Although positive relationships between eDNA concentrations of species and biomass/abundance have been observed in previous studies, estimation of total biomass in a particular ecosystem based on eDNA concentration has not been investigated. To test this, we sampled eDNA from the littoral and pelagic zones of eight small ponds in Japan. Then, we drained ponds to capture all fish inhabiting each pond. We compared the eDNA copies measured by quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction analysis with the captured biomass of three dominant fish species (common carp, bluegill sunfish, and largemouth bass) obtained by direct capture. Differences in eDNA concentrations were compared between the littoral and pelagic zones of each pond. We found positive relationships between the eDNA copies and the whole captured biomass of all target species using Type II logarithmic equations, and the eDNA copies appeared to be saturated at a higher total biomass. We found positive correlations between the total number of eDNA copies and the total captured biomass of three fish species. This demonstrated the first step in estimating the population biomass of target fish species under natural conditions using eDNA measurement.