Dr Joseph DiBattista1
1Griffith University, Southport, Australia
Biography:
Joseph DiBattista most recently served as NSW Senior Research Scientist and Curator in the Ichthyology Section at the Australian Museum (2018-2023), where he maintains Research Associate status and continues to coordinate legacy fish genetic projects between the museum, CSIRO, and the Minderoo Foundation. His current research at Griffith University as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Environment and Science is focused on exploring new ways to track and monitor environmental shifts in our coastal and marine ecosystems with eDNA. He is also co-founder of an outreach event series to support ECRs in NSW and manages an iNaturalist citizen science project that aims to increase available marine biodiversity records from Southern Sydney Harbour.
Abstract:
Biodiversity plays a critical role in the resilience of natural systems, and there is a directed effort towards understanding current threats to biodiversity (e.g. climate change). The emerging field of environmental DNA is transforming our approach to how we assess biological diversity and, in select applications, quantify animals in the wild. In this talk I will explore these new genetic tools as applied to marine monitoring in estuarine ecosystems. In particular, I will focus on how “Tree of Life” metabarcoding approaches can provide both spatial and temporal acuity related to the flora and fauna that may be most impacted or improved by habitat degradation or restoration efforts. Additionally, I will highlight the abiotic and biotic factors that should be considered and integrated into estuarine monitoring sampling design. Finally, I will highlight how citizen science programs aimed at photographing plants and animals in our estuaries can "value add" to this genetic research.