Abstract
Mozambique’s riverine and estuarine fauna remains poorly studied due to ongoing armed conflicts in parts of the country, logistical difficulties in accessing sites and limited local expertise. Metabarcoding of environmental DNA (eDNA) presents a novel and promising means of rapidly documenting entire animal communities. Still, a reference database of DNA barcodes is needed and largely lacking for this method to reach its full potential. The current project had two aims. First, DNA sequences of specimens caught at various sample sites in Mozambique were added to a reference database of existing DNA barcodes and an associated morphological collection was created. These DNA barcodes were added to the BOLD repository for future reference. Second, sediment samples were analysed using eDNA metabarcoding and any organisms whose DNA was present were identified to the lowest taxonomic level using the reference database and published DNA sequences. This information will provide insight into the number of species present at each site and provide information on how much additional sampling is required to complete the reference collection. The study contributed towards improving our knowledge of the overall biodiversity of Mozambique’s rivers and estuaries and added DNA sequence data from an understudied region to the ongoing database of East African aquatic fauna.