Feature Publication Archive
Gold, Z., R.P. Kelly, A.O. Shelton, A.R. Thompson, K.D. Goodwin, R. Gallego, K.M. Parsons, L.R. Thompson, D. Kacev, and P.H. Barber (2023): Archived DNA reveals marine heatwave-associated shifts in fish assemblages. Environmental DNA, 00, 1-14, https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.400
Quantitative environmental DNA (eDNA) approaches improve our ability to characterize the impacts of marine heatwaves on marine ecosystems, revealing unprecedented novel species assemblages. Work by Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI), and partners revealed marked shifts in California Current Large Marine Ecosystem fish larvae communities across a 23-year time series with large changes in response to the 2014–2016 marine heatwave. The high abundances of both Northern anchovy and southern mesopelagic (i.e., more tropical) species were unique in the previous 70 years of CalCOFI surveys, suggesting that climate-associated ecosystem shifts will be without modern analog.
Our results demonstrate the power of eDNA metabarcoding from ethanol preserved bulk samples to unlock important insights into community dynamics over time, creating novel research opportunities from preserved sample collections.These efforts are valuable to providing higher resolution zooplankton and fish larvae data from archived NOAA sample collections like CalCOFI and Ecosystem Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (EcoFOCI). These higher resolution approaches may... more »
Many of the PMEL staff stopped by the NOAA booth to give lightning talks and network with other NOAA staff.
Buck, J.J.H., et al. (2019): Ocean data product integration through innovation—The next level of data interoperability. Front. Mar. Sci., 6, 32, Oceanobs19: An Ocean of Opportunity. ... more »
Adult zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha (left) and quagga mussel D. rostriformis (right).
Marshall, N.T., and C.A. Stepien (2019): Invasion genetics from eDNA and thousands of larvae: A targeted metabarcoding assay that distinguishes species and population variation of zebra and quagga mussels. Ecol. Evol., 9, 3515–3538, doi: 10.1002/ece3.4985.
Identifying species and population genetic compositions of biological invasions at early life stages and/or from environmental (e)DNA using targeted high-throughput sequencing (HTS) metabarcode assays offers powerful and cost-effective means for early detection, analysis of spread patterns, and evaluating population changes.
Read the paper at Ecology and Evolution (Wiley).