Descripción del proyecto
Un modo nuevo de observar el transporte de ADN ambiental en los ríos
Para evaluar la calidad de los lagos es necesario realizar un seguimiento preciso de los peces. Los estudios realizados muestran que la técnica de los metacódigos de barras de ADN ambiental es eficaz a la hora de generar información semicuantitativa sobre comunidades de peces en grandes lagos. El proyecto financiado por la UE LeDNA investiga la influencia de la biodiversidad alterada en los ecosistemas y el modo de aprovechar esta información para modificar nuestra influencia en la biosfera. El primer paso es determinar la distribución de las especies, una labor cara y lenta. Para abordar este reto, LeDNA cambiará empíricamente el modo en el que muestreamos la biodiversidad animal y vegetal. El proyecto demostrará el transporte de ADN ambiental en ríos y su pertenencia a especies acuáticas y terrestres. El muestreo de este AND ambiental reducirá considerablemente los costes de secuenciación, el tiempo de las pruebas y los requisitos de capacidad de computación.
Objetivo
The global loss and redistribution of biodiversity is a hallmark of the Anthropocene. Our challenge is to generate information about how altered biodiversity influences ecosystems and use this information to change our impact on the biosphere. To meet this challenge, we must know where species are, how their distributions change in time and why. However, current methods for determining species distributions is expensive, time intensive and hard to do for multiple species and large geographic regions- rendering global trend analysis near infeasible. We therefore need a paradigm shift. I will utilize the biotechnology of the fourth industrial revolution (i.e. inexpensive sequencing and computational power) to empirically change how we sample animal and plant biodiversity to solve the infeasibility problem of tracking multiple species distributions on large spatial scales. I am among the first to show that DNA shed from animals into the environment (‘eDNA’) is transported in rivers (10-12 km) and that it is from aquatic and terrestrial species. Building on these observations, I hypothesize that transported eDNA allows for sampling multiple species on large spatial scales and will test my hypothesis by determining if lakes act as accumulators of eDNA in the landscape by receiving transported eDNA from rivers. Thus, my proposed research will investigate (1) how chemical, physical, and biotic processes cause eDNA decay to understand its transport potential in the environment, (2) how much eDNA from a catchment is transported into a lake, and (3) in a global set of lakes, test whether eDNA measures seasonal turnover of biodiversity for large spatial scales. If lakes accumulate eDNA from their catchments, sampling them will provide the paradigm shift needed to vastly change the cost, speed and geographic scale with which species can be surveyed through time to understand what effect their change has on the biosphere.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitución de acogida
8092 Zuerich
Suiza