Environmental DNA (eDNA) is becoming an increasingly important tool in diverse scientific fields from ecological biomonitoring to wastewater surveillance of viruses. The fundamental challenge in eDNA analyses has been the bioinformatical assignment of reads to taxonomic groups. It has long been known that full probabilistic methods for phylogenetic assignment are preferable, but unfortunately, such methods are computationally intensive and are typically inapplicable to modern next-generation sequencing data. We present a fast approximate likelihood method for phylogenetic assignment of DNA sequences. Applying the new method to several mock communities and simulated datasets, we show that it identifies more reads at both high and low taxonomic levels more accurately than other leading methods. The advantage of the method is particularly apparent in the presence of polymorphisms and/or sequencing errors and when the true species is not represented in the reference database.

We determined the intersubject association between the rhythmic entrainment abilities of human subjects during a synchronization-continuation tapping task (SCT) and the macro- and microstructural properties of their superficial (SWM) and deep (DWM) white matter. Diffusion-weighted images were obtained from 32 subjects who performed the SCT with auditory or visual metronomes and five tempos ranging from 550 to 950 ms. We developed a method to determine the density of short-range fibers that run underneath the cortical mantle, interconnecting nearby cortical regions (U-fibers). Notably, individual differences in the density of U-fibers in the right audiomotor system were correlated with the degree of phase accuracy between the stimuli and taps across subjects. These correlations were specific to the synchronization epoch with auditory metronomes and tempos around 1.5 Hz. In addition, a significant association was found between phase accuracy and the density and bundle diameter of the corpus callosum, forming an interval-selective map where short and long intervals were behaviorally correlated with the anterior and posterior portions of the corpus callosum. These findings suggest that the structural properties of the SWM and DWM in the audiomotor system support the tapping synchronization abilities of subjects, as cortical U-fiber density is linked to the preferred tapping tempo and the bundle properties of the corpus callosum define an interval-selective topography.