Dr Tom Mooney1, Dr Kate Montgomery1, Ms Lisa Chandler1, Ms Julie Hanley2, Dr Chris Humphrey1, Dr Peter Dostine4, Dr Anthony Chariton3, Dr Andrew Harford1
1Office of the Supervising Scientist, Dept. Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Darwin, Australia, 2James Cook University, Townsville, Australia, 3Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, 4Department of Environment, Parks and Water Security, Darwin, Australia
Biography:
TBC
Abstract:
Since 1988, the Office of the Supervising Scientist Branch (OSS) of the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) has conducted an annual biomonitoring program to evaluate the potential impacts of the Ranger Mine. Macroinvertebrate assemblages serve as crucial indicators of aquatic ecosystem health, but their current morphological identification is labour-intensive, time-consuming, and costly. Metabarcoding offers a transformative and potentially more cost-effective approach to obtaining accurate species-level data for aquatic assemblages. Our project aims to develop a cost-effective method for processing macroinvertebrate samples to meet OSS’s long-term monitoring commitments. Our newly developed DNA barcode library will underpin the identification of fauna in field-collected samples using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies. Routine monitoring samples have been divided into two halves. One-half has been subsampled and morphologically identified to the species level. The other half has been subsampled twice for DNA-based identification: the first subsample will be kept whole (including detritus), homogenized, and sequenced for amplicons (CO1, 18S). The second subsample will have detritus removed to isolate macroinvertebrates and limit extraneous sequences, then homogenized and shotgun sequenced to obtain the metagenome. This side-by-side approach has been conducted over three years to ensure continuity in monitoring data and allow for a thorough comparison of data metrics and interpretations. We will present results from the use of our unique macroinvertebrate barcode library and the comparisons of morphological versus metabarcoding methods.