Post Your Answer
2 years ago in Conservation Biology , Molecular Biology By Rinku
How can biodiversity of a specific area be assessed using molecular approaches?
Camera traps and transect walks miss cryptic species like soil microbes, fungi, and many invertebrates. I have a budget for lab work and want to implement a modern molecular assessment. Which approaches eDNA, barcoding, or metagenomics are most feasible for a small team to deploy in the field, and how do I handle the subsequent bioinformatics?
All Answers (1 Answers In All)
By Joshna Answered 2 years ago
I've coordinated several such projects. I would recommend starting with a targeted eDNA metabarcoding approach. It's the most scalable. You systematically collect soil and water samples across gradients, preserve them in ethanol or buffer, and extract bulk DNA. The key is using universal primer sets for your taxa of interest like CO1 for animals, ITS for fungi. For a manageable start, outsource the library prep and sequencing to a core facility. The major workload is bioinformatics: you'll need a pipeline for quality filtering, clustering sequences into OTUs, and comparing them to reference databases. Start with user-friendly platforms like QIIME2 or USEARCH before building custom scripts.
Â
Reply to Joshna
Related Questions