Developing a DNA-based indicator of multitrophic diversity to assess impacts of land use on Quebec's inland waters

开发基于 DNA 的多营养多样性指标，以评估土地利用对魁北克内陆水域的影响

• 批准号: 560300-2020
• 负责人: Fugère, VincentV
• 金额: $ 3.58万
• 依托单位: Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Alliance Grants
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=765335
• 关键词: Developing; DNA; based; indicator; multitrophic

Canadians are the stewards of more inland water bodies than any other country in the world, a key resource that faces increasing pressures from agricultural intensification. To track these impacts and to assess the ecological integrity of our inland waters, monitoring programs rely on organisms that serve as indicators of water quality, for example bottom-dwelling algae and invertebrates. These biomonitoring activities are however limited in their spatial and temporal scope, mainly because the microscopic enumeration of organisms is a time-consuming process that requires expert taxonomic knowledge. An emergent technology that could solve this problem is the characterization of environmental DNA (eDNA), namely DNA traces left by organisms in the environment. For example, traces of DNA in a single water sample collected at the mouth of a river can reveal the thousands of plants and animals that occur in that river's watershed. Thus, by sequencing eDNA, one could in principle determine the species composition of a site without having to identify organisms with traditional, labour-intensive methods. Moreover, as many genetic markers have recently been optimized to detect various taxa, it is now possible to reconstruct the entire food web of an aquatic ecosystem (including microbes, invertebrates, and fish) by sequencing multiple markers from the same DNA sample, which could provide a richer understanding of biodiversity trends than traditional monitoring focused on a single group of organisms. We propose to develop a multimarker eDNA monitoring approach for the Lac Saint-Pierre UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, a large fluvial lake along the St-Lawrence River. In partnership with three branches of Quebec's government, 4 watershed management organizations, a federal cross-agency genomics project, and an Abenaki first nation community, we will: 1) calibrate a comprehensive eDNA biomonitoring tool that can be used by various stakeholders in the region; 2) assess impacts of land use intensification on streams and wetlands in a provincial biodiversity hotspot; and 3) provide one of the first studies quantifying the response of 'multitrophic' freshwater biodiversity to watershed land use.

加拿大是世界上管理内陆水体最多的国家，这一关键资源面临着农业集约化带来的越来越大的压力。为了追踪这些影响并评估我们内陆水域的生态完整性，监测项目依赖于作为水质指标的生物，例如海底藻类和无脊椎动物。然而，这些生物监测活动在空间和时间范围上是有限的，主要是因为微生物的微观枚举是一个耗时的过程，需要专业的分类学知识。一项可以解决这个问题的新兴技术是环境DNA （eDNA）的表征，即生物体在环境中留下的DNA痕迹。例如，在河口采集的单个水样中的DNA痕迹可以揭示该河流流域中出现的数千种动植物。因此，通过测序eDNA，原则上可以确定一个位点的物种组成，而不必用传统的劳动密集型方法识别生物体。此外，由于许多遗传标记最近已被优化以检测各种分类群，现在可以通过对来自同一DNA样本的多个标记进行测序来重建水生生态系统的整个食物网（包括微生物，无脊椎动物和鱼类），这可以提供对生物多样性趋势的更丰富的理解，而不是传统的关注单一生物群体的监测。我们建议为圣劳伦斯河沿岸的大型河流湖圣皮埃尔湖联合国教科文组织生物圈保护区开发一种多标记eDNA监测方法。通过与魁北克省政府的三个分支机构、4个流域管理组织、一个联邦跨机构基因组学项目和一个阿贝纳基第一民族社区的合作，我们将：1)校准一个全面的eDNA生物监测工具，供该地区的各种利益相关者使用；2)评价土地利用集约化对省级生物多样性热点地区河流和湿地的影响；3)提供了量化“多营养型”淡水生物多样性对流域土地利用的响应的首批研究之一。