scholarly journals Airborne environmental DNA for terrestrial vertebrate community monitoring

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Lynggaard ◽  
Mads Frost Bertelsen ◽  
Casper V. Jensen ◽  
Matthew S. Johnson ◽  
Tobias Guldberg Frøslev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Dna ◽  
Terrestrial Vertebrate ◽  
Community Monitoring

scholarly journals Airborne environmental DNA for terrestrial vertebrate community monitoring

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Lynggaard ◽  
Mads Frost Bertelsen ◽  
Casper V. Jensen ◽  
Matthew S. Johnson ◽  
Tobias Guldberg Froslev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Environmental Dna ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Monitoring Methods ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
Terrestrial Vertebrate ◽  
Detection Failure ◽  
Routine Monitoring ◽  
Community Monitoring ◽  
Wide Range

Assessing and studying the distribution, ecology, diversity and movements of species is key in understanding environmental and anthropogenic effects on natural ecosystems. Although environmental DNA is rapidly becoming the tool of choice to assess biodiversity there are few eDNA sample types that effectively capture terrestrial vertebrate diversity and those that do can be laborious to collect, require special permits and contain PCR inhibitory substances, which can lead to detection failure. Thus there is an urgent need for novel environmental DNA approaches for efficient and cost-effective large-scale routine monitoring of terrestrial vertebrate diversity. Here we show that DNA metabarcoding of airborne environmental DNA filtered from air can be used to detect a wide range of local vertebrate taxa. We filtered air at three localities in Copenhagen Zoo, detecting mammal, bird, amphibian and reptile species present in the zoo or its immediate surroundings. Our study demonstrates that airDNA has the capacity to complement and extend existing terrestrial vertebrate monitoring methods and could form the cornerstone of programs to assess and monitor terrestrial communities, for example in future global next generation biomonitoring frameworks.

scholarly journals BeeDNA: microfluidic environmental DNA metabarcoding as a tool for connecting plant and pollinator communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynsey R Harper ◽  
Matthew L Niemiller ◽  
Joseph Benito ◽  
Lauren E Paddock ◽  
E Knittle ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cost Efficiency ◽  
Environmental Dna ◽  
Plant Reproduction ◽  
Ecosystem Functions ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Pollinator Community ◽  
Community Monitoring ◽  
Field Samples ◽  
Dna Metabarcoding ◽  
Primer Sets

Pollinators are imperiled by global declines that can impair plant reproduction, erode essential ecosystem services and resilience, and drive economic losses. Monitoring pollinator biodiversity trends is key for adaptive conservation and management, but conventional surveys are often costly, time consuming, and require taxonomic expertise. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding surveys are booming due to their rapidity, non-invasiveness, and cost efficiency. Microfluidic technology allows multiple primer sets from different markers to be used in eDNA metabarcoding for more comprehensive species inventories whilst minimizing biases associated with individual primer sets. We evaluated microfluidic eDNA metabarcoding for pollinator community monitoring by introducing a bumblebee colony to a greenhouse flower assemblage and sampling natural flower plots. We collected nectar draws, flower swabs, or whole flower heads from four flowering species, including two occurring in both the greenhouse and field. Samples were processed using two eDNA isolation protocols before amplification with 15 primer sets for two markers (COI and 16S). Microfluidic eDNA metabarcoding detected the target bumblebee and greenhouse insects as well as common regional arthropods. Pollinator detection was maximized using whole flower heads preserved in ATL buffer and extracted with a modified Qiagen DNeasy protocol for amplification with COI primers. eDNA surveillance could enhance pollinator assessment by detecting protected and endangered species and being more applicable to remote, inaccessible locations, whilst reducing survey time, effort, and expense. Microfluidic eDNA metabarcoding requires optimization but shows promise in revealing complex networks underpinning critical ecosystem functions and services, enabling more accurate assessments of ecosystem resilience.

Late Cretaceous stratigraphy and vertebrate faunas of the Markagunt, Paunsaugunt, and Kaiparowits plateaus, southern Utah

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 229-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Titus ◽  
Jeffrey G. Eaton ◽  
Joseph Sertich
Keyword(s):  
Late Cretaceous ◽  
Foreland Basin ◽  
Alluvial Plain ◽  
Terrestrial Vertebrate ◽  
The North ◽  
Single Region ◽  
The World ◽  
Kaiparowits Plateau ◽  
Fossil Preservation ◽  
Fossil Records

The Late Cretaceous succession of southern Utah was deposited in an active foreland basin circa 100 to 70 million years ago. Thick siliciclastic units represent a variety of marine, coastal, and alluvial plain environments, but are dominantly terrestrial, and also highly fossiliferous. Conditions for vertebrate fossil preservation appear to have optimized in alluvial plain settings more distant from the coast, and so in general the locus of good preservation of diverse assemblages shifts eastward through the Late Cretaceous. The Middle and Late Campanian record of the Paunsaugunt and Kaiparowits Plateau regions is especially good, exhibiting common soft tissue preservation, and comparable with that of the contemporaneous Judith River and Belly River Groups to the north. Collectively the Cenomanian through Campanian strata of southern Utah hold one of the most complete single region terrestrial vertebrate fossil records in the world.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document