Yuwei Xie, Phillip J. Ankley, Stephanie Graves, Jonathan K. Challis, Mark R. Servos, John P. Giesy (2022). A passive eDNA sampling strategy for metazoan biodiversity assessment. Proceedings of the GWF Annual Open Science Meeting, May 16-18, 2022.

To understand the dynamic freshwater ecosystems, bio-survey relies on periodic active field sampling. Aqueous environmental DNA (aeDNA) snapshots biodiversity information typically from the contemporary environment, which may underestimate the bio-integrity. Additionally, water filtration is time-consuming and labour-intensive, and can have high risk of external contamination. Here, we tested passive eDNA sampling approach in a boreal lake to assess the ability of this sampling method for aeDNA metabarcoding-based biomonitoring. The collection methods used included swab and gel passive sampling along with water and sediment samples, with all four methods being compared to each other for the detection of target taxa and to traditional biomonitoring or historical data. The target taxa to compare between collection methods included zooplankton, fish, and benthic macroinvertebrates, as these taxa had traditional biomonitoring data available for the study lake and represent taxa that are most commonly used for biomonitoring purposes. Cytochrome Oxidase I (CO1) gene region was utilized for metazoan metabarcoding, as there are large databases readily accessible with CO1 annotated species and it performs well for metazoan biodiversity. Passive samplers, polyacrylamide diffusive gel and smaller ecological footprint and non-hazardous swab, improves sensitivity of aeDNA metabarcoding to characterize metazoan biodiversity and detection of target taxa through metabarcoding.

First Author: Yuwei Xie, Toxicology Centre, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada
Additional Authors: Phillip J. Ankley, Toxicology Centre, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada; Stephanie Graves, Toxicology Centre, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada; Biology Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada; Jonathan K. Challis, Toxicology Centre, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Lethbridge, AB, Canada; Mark R. Servos, Department of Biology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo. Ontario, Canada; John P. Giesy, Toxicology Centre and Department of Veterinary Biomedical Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada;Department of Environmental Sciences, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, USA; Department of Zoology and Center for Integrative Toxicology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA