Dr Megan Shaffer1, Amy Gault1, Dr Bobby Lust1, Dr Shaun Wilkinson1
1Wilderlab NZ Ltd, Wellington, New Zealand
Integrated monitoring of the environment and its inhabitants is important to detect trends in ecological health, changes in status of rare/endangered organisms and early detection of invasive species. eDNA metabarcoding analysis offers a powerful and scalable solution for whole ecosystem monitoring, but many eDNA studies still rely on one or a few assays which can introduce taxonomic bias and miss ecologically-important groups. We have worked closely with key partners and end users including local and central government agencies (NZ Regional Councils, Department of Conservation, NZ EPA), environmental consultants, primary sector partners, iwi, hapū, and other community groups to develop an assay panel and high-throughput laboratory workflow suited to most routine freshwater biodiversity and biosecurity applications. The comprehensive freshwater monitoring panel includes 11 short-amplicon metabarcoding assays comprising both existing and novel primer sets that target mitochondrial, plastid and nuclear markers, and detects a wide range of organisms including bacteria, microeukaryotes, fungi, plants, invertebrates and vertebrates. Included in these are ecologically and culturally important taxa such as piharau (lamprey), non-migratory galaxiids, tuna (eels), pepeketua (Hochstetter’s frogs) and kākahi (freshwater mussels). Also in scope are invasive organisms such as hornwort (Ceratophyllum), koi carp (Cyprinus), and the ‘rock-snot’ diatom Didymosiphaena. The comprehensive freshwater assay panel also produces robust molecular MCI, fish IBI and taxon independent community index (TICI) values, making it a powerful tool to use alongside existing monitoring techniques for integrated freshwater monitoring in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Biography:
Biographies to come.