Table 3. Fish identified by cytb from eDNA metabarcoding on the Nam Theun area during five sampling campaigns and for the 8 sites sampled.

Taxonomic levels identified with eDNA metabarcoding (cytb)				Fish frequencies (%)
Order	Family	Genus	Species	NTH	XBF
Beloniformes	Belonidae	1	(1)	0	<0.01
Cichliformes	Cichlidae	2(1)	2	7.31	1.52
			(3)	19.26	1.84
Clupeiformes	Clupeidae	1	1	0	<0.001
Cypriniformes	Cobitidae	4	5	<0.01	1.47
		1(1)	(2)	0	1.73
	Cyprinidae	33(1)	40	24.73	25.97
			(15)	41.39	51.27
	Gyrinocheilidae	1	1	1.90	0.26
			(1)	<0.01	<0.01
	Nemacheilidae	1	1	0	0.03
Osteoglossiformes	Notopteridae	2	2	0	0.47
Siluriformes	Amblycipitidae*	1	1	0	<0.01
	Bagridae	4(1)	6	0	4.07
			(2)	3.93	5.72
	Clariidae	1	2	0.09	<0.01
		(1)	(1)	<0.01	0
	Pangasiidae	1(1)	2	0	0.06
			(1)	0	0.04
	Schilbeidae	2	2	0	1.82
			(1)	0	0.03
	Siluridae	4	4	0	0.65
		2	(2)	0.04	0.02
Synbranchiformes	Mastacembelidae	1	1	0	0.64
			(1)	1.33	2.27
Tetraodontiformes	Tetraodontidae	1	1	0	0.07
		(1)	(1)	0	0.02
Total 8	16	63(7)	71(31)	34(66)	37(63)

Only order and family names are indicated with the corresponding number of genera and species identified using cytb reads (BLAST identity > 95%). The mean frequencies of fish detected (estimated from reads number) across the 5 sampling campaigns are given in percentage for the Nam Theun River (NTH, 4 sites) and the Xe Bangfai River sites (XBF, 4 sites) considering family assignment. The lines in white correspond to data identified at species level and in grey to unclassified species. The total line gives the number of taxonomic groups assigned at different level with additional “unclassified” groups given between parentheses.

* indicates taxon not found with 12S (Table 4)