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Capacity for DNA-barcode based taxonomy in support of Great Lakes biological monitoring
Citation:
Trebitz, A., J. Hoffman, E. Pilgrim, Greg Peterson, AND J. Lietz. Capacity for DNA-barcode based taxonomy in support of Great Lakes biological monitoring. IAGLR Conference, Burlington, VT, May 25 - 29, 2015.
Impact/Purpose:
not applicable
Description:
Enumerating organisms collected via nets and sediment grabs is a mainstay of aquatic ecology. Since morphological taxonomy can require considerable resources and expertise, DNA barcode-based identification of mixed-organism samples offers a valuable tool in support of biological monitoring. We recently compiled inventories for Great Lakes aquatic fauna (>1600 taxa) and examined the availability of reference mitochondrial COI DNA barcodes for them. We found barcode libraries to be largely complete for vertebrate species both extant and on threatening-to-invade lists. In contrast, roughly half of aquatic invertebrates lacked reference DNA barcodes or were not resolved to species such that barcodes could be looked up a situation which calls for a concerted effort of voucher collection and barcode library building among Great Lakes researchers. We are also actively testing DNA-based taxonomy in the context of monitoring for invasive species. While there remain issues to explore and procedures to resolve, we show that bulk DNA processing of mixed-organism samples has the potential to bypass the laboratory effort of sample sorting and microscopy.