Mr Scott Morrissey1,2, Professor Dean Jerry1,3,4,5, Professor Michael Kingsford1,2
1College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia, 2ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, Townsville, Australia , 3ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Advanced Prawn Breeding, Townsville, Australia , 4Tropical Futures Institute, , Singapore, 5ARC Research Hub for Supercharging Tropical Aquaculture through Genetic Solutions, Townsville, Australia
Chironex fleckeri is considered the most dangerous cubozoan species and poses a considerable risk to both human health and enterprise. Despite this threat, considerable knowledge gaps surrounding the basic ecology of C. fleckeri exist. These knowledge gaps are largely due to the challenges associated with detection of cryptic life-stages of the jellyfish. Environmental DNA has the potential to overcome these detection challenges as it provides a means to determine the presence of the species at any life-stage in a locality without the need for morphological identification.
Here we developed a TaqMan based species-specific assay, multiplexed with an endogenous control, and are aiming to answer the following questions. 1) How long does Chironex’s eDNA signal last and does temperature influence the decay rate. 2) Can eDNA be utilised to detect both medusae and polyp life-history stages of the jellyfish. Cubozoan polyps have only been located twice in the wild and a detection technique such as eDNA may help us identify where they are and to understand this understudied life-history stage. 3) Can eDNA be utilised as a tool to test ecological hypotheses.
Environmental DNA has the potential to significantly advance research and knowledge surrounding Cubozoan ecology which in turn will allow for greater management of the risk they pose.
Biography:
Biographies to come