Dr Eric Treml1, Dr Simone Stevenson1, Dr Ane Pastor1, Mr Morgan Ellis1, A/Prof Craig Sherman1
1Deakin University, Queenscliff Marine Science Centre, Australia
The Anthropocene has seen a rapid increase in globalisation, largely due to increased international trade. At present, approximately 75 to 80 percent of all global trade is through a complex maritime transportation network, and this is expected to double by 2050. This marine transport is largely responsible for the associated increase in the movement and subsequent introduction of marine pests. Indeed, introduced species are now recognised as the second largest threat to biodiversity, causing social, economic, and environmental impacts. Now, more than ever, there is an urgent need for early, rapid, and reliable detection of pests, across a diversity of marine environments. In this research, we demonstrate how a biophysical model and field-based eDNA sampling protocol can be coupled to maximise the detection likelihood of marine organisms while minimising cost and effort. This eDNA detection optimisation approach is based on characterising the local-scale oceanographic setting (e.g., currents, tides, winds) and allowing this to inform the spatial-temporal sampling strategy. We demonstrate how this approach can be used across several species and coastal setting in Victoria, Australia. Our results quantify sampling efficiencies and increased detection likelihoods across many dynamic seascapes. Finally, we highlight the most important biological and physical parameters that determine eDNA dispersion and detectability, and discuss how this approach can be approximated in data-poor regions.
Biography:
Dr Eric Treml is the lead of the Marine Spatial Ecology and Conservation research team at Deakin University, Victoria. His background is in tropical and temperate marine ecology, landscape ecology, coastal management, and the geospatial sciences. Treml’s research interests are in understanding the causes and consequences of population connectivity and assisting in developing effective management plans and priorities, particularly considering the current climate trends. He uses a variety of tools, including numerical modelling, geographic information systems, spatially-explicit dynamic modelling, spatial statistics, and network analysis.