Miss Jessica Pearce1,2, Dr Abinaya Meenakshisundaram2,3, Dr Oliver Jewell2,4, Dr Ben D'Antonio2,5, Dr Matthew Fraser2,3,6, Dr Shannon Corrigan2,3,6, Dr Rich Edwards2, Dr Luke Thomas2,7
1University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia, 2UWA Oceans Institute, Crawley, Australia, 3Minderoo OceanOmics Centre at UWA, Crawley, Australia, 4WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Denham, Australia, 5Shark Research Foundation, , , 6Minderoo Foundation, Perth, Australia, 7Australian Institute of Marine Science, Crawley, Australia
Biography:
Jess is a marine molecular ecologist whose research focuses on applying genomics to the conservation and management of sharks. She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Marine Science and Genetics from the University of Western Australia (UWA), where her research investigated genome evolution in sharks and rays. Following her work as a bioinformatician at the Minderoo Foundation, she commenced a PhD at UWA investigating tiger shark populations in WA, including reference genome development and population genomics. Her current research also explores novel eDNA-based approaches for identifying and tracking individual sharks, with the goal of enabling more effective and non-invasive wildlife monitoring.
Abstract:
Conventional monitoring of marine wildlife, including tagging and tissue sampling for population genetic analyses, can be invasive, resource-intensive, and time-consuming. Environmental DNA (eDNA) provides a promising non-invasive alternative, but the low copy number and greater degradation of nuclear DNA make population genetic analyses from environmental samples challenging. Microhaplotypes are short DNA fragments (<300 bp) containing multiple SNPs and can provide greater discriminatory power for identifying individuals and characterising population structure than single genetic markers. Here, we present the first microhaplotype panel for the tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier), a cosmopolitan species and keystone predator distributed throughout Australian waters. We evaluated the panel using both conventional tissue samples and non-invasive eDNA, demonstrating its ability to discriminate individual tiger sharks from paired tissue and water samples collected from the same individuals. We further demonstrate its potential for cost-effective population genetic analyses from both high-quality tissue and degraded or environmental samples and investigate the marker thresholds necessary. Finally, we explore its application for tracking individual sharks through space and time by integrating microhaplotype data with acoustic telemetry and eDNA metabarcoding. Together, our results demonstrate the potential of microhaplotypes to extend population genetic monitoring beyond conventional tissue sampling and towards non-invasive, individual-level monitoring of wild shark populations. Further methodological optimisation and validation will be required to realise fully hands-off monitoring at population scales.