BactMetBar
Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding will revolutionise the monitoring of aquaculture related change.
eDNA is DNA present in environmental samples such as sediment. eDNA can be extracted, sequenced and, by comparison, to databases, those sequences can be linked to taxa.
Recent changes in the way that aquaculture compliance is assessed means that famers are now required to analyse six times as many sediment samples compared to the previous system. This increase will put considerable pressure on existing services and incur a considerable cost on the industry. eDNA offers an alternative to time-consuming, expensive traditional microbenthic analyses in the characterization of sediments, that is quicker and more cost-effective.
We are working with industry and regulators to find the best way to use eDNA to replicate the results from traditional (microbenthic) sampling. We are using machine learning algorithms to find bacterial patters, identified via eDNA, that most closely and reliably predict microbenthic metrics (such as the infaual quality index).
We are sequencing 1000 samples, across both space and time, and linking the eDNA bacterial patterns to traditional metrics of change
We take sediment sub-samples from grabs taken around fish cages and extract and sequence the eDNA. We are using machine to learn how best to link patterns observed in bacterial eDNA with the corresponding biotic indices and will tehn apply this patter-matching algorithm to new samples, predicting their biological status.
For more information contact: Tom Wilding