ERA
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Assessing the degradation of environmental RNA/DNA in controlled conditions for metabarcoding and ddPCR approaches. |
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The implementation of offshore wind farms is expanding worldwide to increase the supply of
renewable energy. Environmental impact assessments and the establishment of environmental monitoring are prerequisites for the construction, operation, and decommissioning of offshore installations, such as the one planned in the South Brittany site off the coast of Belle-Île-en-Mer. Monitoring marine populations, such as fish, relies on traditional sampling methods like bottom trawling. These methods remain limited due to their inefficiency in capturing certain species, potential damage they can cause, and, notably, the inaccessibility of habitats, as bottom trawling is impossible in rocky habitats and within wind farms. Molecular approaches like environmental DNA (eDNA) and more recently environmental RNA (eRNA) are increasingly considered as complementary or potential alternatives to currently used monitoring methods.
To assess the utility and effectiveness of DNA/RNA metabarcoding in characterizing communities with high spatiotemporal resolution, it is necessary to evaluate the persistence and degradation dynamics of eDNA and eRNA. Temporal series of water samples from three basins of the Oceanopolis aquarium in Brest containing various species will be collected using primers optimized for fish and invertebrates. Metabarcoding does not precisely determine the abundance of eDNA/eRNA molecules in water because the obtained copy numbers are influenced by various factors during the analysis (primer adjustments, etc.). In other words, obtaining a greater number of read sequences for a species does not necessarily mean a larger quantity of eDNA/eRNA from that species was present in the water. To complement the experiment, we will target two commercially important fish species with specific primers to estimate the abundance of eRNA and eDNA through a ddPCR approach.
People involved
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FABRI-RUIZ Salomé, Chercheure Email : salome.fabri.ruiz@ifremer.fr |
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MARCHAND Laëtita, Phone : 0240374078 Email : laetitia.marchand@ifremer.fr |
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TRENKEL Verena, chercheur Email : verena.trenkel@ifremer.fr |
Funding and Support
Financements-FR : Carnot-Mers