Biodiversity monitoring through environmental DNA analysis

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The value of healthy ecosystems and the benefits they provide is globally acknowledged, but what is the best way to monitor this health? Research from my lab suggests that biodiversity information obtained in a DNA metasystematics framework can significantly aid ecological and environmental monitoring. Recent and ongoing advances in DNA sequencing and computational tools for data analysis have resulted in shifts towards genomics-based investigations to address basic biological questions. Biodiversity genomics is focused on the use of genomics information for understanding biological diversity from genes to organisms to species to whole ecosystems. Results of our research demonstrate a way forward that offers unprecedented opportunities to increase the sensitivity, timeliness, and effectiveness of ecosystem monitoring and protection, while simultaneously driving down the cost. This proposal outlines that way forward, and how my lab will apply our newly developed DNA metasystematics approach for ecological community analysis of selected priority sites to achieve high-resolution species-level taxonomic information, as well as high-frequency spatio-temporal data for long-term ecosystem health assessment.