Mrs Chloe Anderson1, Dr Haylea Power, Dr Joseph Perkins, Dr Katrina West, Dr Oliver Berry
1CSIRO, Crawley, Australia
Biography:
I am from Perth, Australia, and completed a bachelor’s degree in Marine Science and Conservation Biology at the University of Western Australia, followed by an honours research project in molecular biology with the Western Australian Museum. I am currently a Research Technician in CSIRO’s Biodiversity Discovery and Monitoring research program, where I contribute to the eDNA+ project. My work focuses on developing and applying molecular techniques to improve marine biodiversity assessment using environmental DNA, with a particular interest in fluorescence-activated cell sorting. Ultimately, my research aims to improve the sensitivity and consistency of eDNA-based monitoring.
Abstract:
Environmental DNA (eDNA) sequencing is often dominated by non-target organisms, particularly bacteria and algae, limiting the recovery of low-abundance taxa such as fish, crustaceans, sharks, rays and marine mammals. To address this challenge, we are investigating fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), a technology widely used in biomedical research, as a novel method for eDNA sample enrichment. FACS separates cells and particles according to their size, internal complexity and autofluorescence, allowing us to investigate whether taxonomic groups occupy distinct regions of cytometric parameter space. Enrichment is being evaluated using taxon-specific qPCR, metabarcoding and shotgun sequencing, with a focus on changes in taxonomic composition and the detection of low-abundance taxa. Distinct cytometric profiles could enable the selective enrichment of target groups. Alternatively, identifying and excluding regions dominated by bacterial or algal cells may reduce non-target DNA and increase sequencing capacity for taxa of interest. This study is the first step towards a novel eDNA processing workflow designed to improve the sensitivity and consistency of marine biodiversity assessments.