Discussion
We propose a new HTAS method (MAUI-seq) designed to assess genetic diversity within or across species. It uses global UMI-based errors rates to detect potential PCR artefacts such as chimeras and single-base substitutions more robustly than the widely-used ASV clustering methods, DADA2 and UNOISE3. The approach is potentially applicable to any study of amplicon diversity, including community diversity estimates based on 16S rRNA and other metabarcoding surveys using environmental DNA.