{"paper_id":"232a01cb-e04a-4405-9684-659cc5b60ca0","body_text":"This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint.\nYou must log in to post a comment.\nThere are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article.\nThis is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint.\nAdd a Comment\nYou must log in to post a comment.\nComments\nThere are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article.\nUnderstanding how sample size influences biodiversity detection across taxonomic\ngroups differing in body size is critical for designing robust and cost-efficient\nmetabarcoding studies of soil eukaryotes. Using a soil mass gradient (0.25-32 g)\ncombined with a universal 18S rRNA metabarcoding approach, we quantified how\nsample mass shapes diversity estimates across eukaryotic taxa. Diversity metrics\n(richness and inverse Simpson diversity; q = 0, 2) and community dispersion exhibited\nclear body size-dependent responses. Larger-bodied taxa (e.g., Nematoda, Collembola, Insecta) showed pronounced increases in detected diversity and reduced\ncommunity dispersion with increasing soil mass, indicating that small soil samples fail\nto capture their full diversity. Conversely, microeukaryotic groups such as fungi and\nprotists displayed weak or even negative relationships with increasing soil mass,\nimplying limited improvement in detection with increased sampling effort. These findings demonstrate the interactive effect organismal body size and sampling\napproach on the detection of soil biodiversity. We suggest optimal soil sample sizes for different groups of soil biota, and propose that a taxon-specific analytical framework can enhance both the ecological representativeness and cost efficiency in\nmetabarcoding-based soil biodiversity assessments and monitoring.\nhttps://doi.org/10.32942/X2GM39\nBiodiversity, Bioinformatics, Life Sciences\n18S rRNA metabarcoding, Soil eukaryotes, Sample size, Body size, Soil eDNA\nPublished: 2026-04-14 04:54\nLast Updated: 2026-04-14 04:54\nCC BY Attribution 4.0 International\nConflict of interest statement:\nNone\nLanguage:\nEnglish","source_license":"CC-BY-4.0","license_restricted":false}