Dr Francisco Encinas Viso1
1CSIRO, Canberra, Australia
Biography:
Francisco is a senior research scientist at the Centre of Australian National Biodiversity Research, CSIRO. He has been working on the application of eDNA to monitor terrestrial ecosystems and biosecurity research in the last seven years. His research is highly focused on developing novel sampling methods and data analytic tools that makes eDNA more quantifiable (beyond presence-absence). More recently, he is interested in data integration approaches, where eDNA data can be integrated with other biomonitoring technologies to build robust predictive models for biosecurity research and to study impacts of climate change impacts.
Abstract:
Terrestrial ecosystems are suffering major impacts by climate change and habitat fragmentation which have generated a major insect decline threatening pollination services and food security. However, quantification of plant-pollinator interactions and pollination services still remain an important challenge in field studies because it requires high taxonomic expertise, and it is very laborious using traditional observation methods. Recently environmental DNA (eDNA) methods have emerged as an alternative tool for monitoring plant-pollinator communities and pollination services. These methods aim to improve taxonomic resolution, quantify the presence of cryptic taxa and combined with Bayesian community models allow us to detect spatio-temporal community changes and the environmental factors driving those changes. In this talk I will show how eDNA and this modelling approach can be applied to monitor alpine plant communities and plant-pollinator interactions across time and space as well as how they can be integrated with other data sources (e.g., museum collections, remote sensing) to investigate the impact of global changes in terrestrial ecosystems.