Dr Viet-cuong Han1,2, Dr Katherine Zulak3, Dr Joshua Newton1,2, Dr Samuel Thompson2, Dr Mieke Van Der Heyde1,2, Professor Morten Allentoft2, Professor Paul Nevill1,2
1MBioMe – Mine Site Biomonitoring Using eDNA Research Group, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, Australia, 2Trace and Environmental DNA (TrEnD) Laboratory, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, Australia, 3Centre for Crop and Disease Management, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, Australia
Biography:
Dr Viet-Cuong (Cuong) Han is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Curtin University’s Trace and Environmental DNA (TrEnD) Laboratory and MBioMe Research Group. His research focuses on environmental DNA, microbiome ecology, plant pathology, biosecurity, and biodiversity monitoring. He uses molecular and ecological approaches to investigate microbial community dynamics across environmental systems and develop innovative tools for ecosystem monitoring and surveillance. Cuong serves as a Senior Editor for Australasian Plant Pathology and an Academic Editor for several international journals. His work aims to advance sustainable agriculture and environmental management through eDNA and microbiome-based approaches.
Abstract:
Airborne environmental DNA (eDNA) offers new opportunities for biodiversity monitoring and biosecurity surveillance, yet the ecological processes captured by airborne eDNA remain poorly understood at landscape scales. This study evaluated whether mobile airborne eDNA sampling can resolve ecological patterns while supporting environmental and agricultural monitoring.
We used a vehicle-mounted airborne eDNA sampling platform to survey the aeromicrobiome across a 1,155 km transect spanning multiple bioregions in Western Australia. High-throughput sequencing was used to characterise fungal, bacterial, and oomycete communities, identify microbial bioindicators, and assess the utility of airborne eDNA for pathogen surveillance. Complementary targeted long-read sequencing enabled detection of fungicide resistance-associated haplotypes in an economically important crop pathogen.
Despite atmospheric mixing, airborne microbial communities exhibited clear landscape-scale spatial structure. Fungal communities showed pronounced turnover in composition among landscapes, whereas bacterial communities displayed stronger responses to environmental gradients but weaker compositional differentiation. Distinct microbial signatures characterised multiple bioregions, indicating that airborne eDNA can capture broad ecological signals across heterogeneous landscapes. Airborne eDNA detected 49 plant pathogen species, including fungal, bacterial, and oomycete taxa, alongside beneficial microorganisms and clinically relevant microbial taxa, highlighting links among environmental, agricultural, and human-associated microbial reservoirs. Complementary multi-marker metabarcoding expanded taxonomic coverage beyond single-marker surveys.
These findings demonstrate that mobile airborne eDNA sampling provides a scalable framework for simultaneously monitoring biodiversity, ecological processes, pathogen movement, and resistance-associated genotypes across large spatial scales. The study highlights the potential of airborne eDNA as an operational platform for ecosystem monitoring, biosecurity surveillance, and One Health applications.