We offer two master’s projects in ecology, DNA-based monitoring and bioinformatics. Ecosystems worldwide are changing at unprecedented rates, driven by anthropogenic activities including habitat degradation or climate change. Aquatic habitats are particularly exposed and increasingly affected, where there is a reduction in both ecosystem functioning and species richness. In addition to warming ocean temperature, overfishing and pollution, negative impacts in marine habitats are often caused by species introduction with their associated. To mitigate the impacts of non-native species and human stressors on marine communities, the establishment of reliable biomonitoring strategies is urgently needed, especially when they implement standardized protocols that can be implemented across large spatial and temporal scales.
A central challenge to marine biomonitoring is the limited access/infrastructure and the associated high costs and logistic complexity of sampling using standard morphological methods. This led to a limited number of large-scale ongoing coastal monitoring programs and surveys. The use of molecular techniques such as environmental DNA (eDNA) based detection has become a reliable and widely used tool in marine biomonitoring. This method relies on the detection of DNA traces left by living organisms in their environment and can easily be integrated as a biomonitoring tool.
Harnessing eDNA metabarcoding to investigate aquatic community composition and its seasonal changes in the Oslo fjord
Supervisors: Quentin Mauvisseau, Micah Dunthorn, Cintia Oliveira Carvalho and Hugo de Boer
quentin.mauvisseau@nhm.uio.no; micah.dunthorn@nhm.uio.no; c.o.carvalho@nhm.uio.no; h.de.boer@nhm.uio.no
Metabarcoding analyses of eDNA especially offers a revolutionary approach to improve spatial and temporal extensive monitoring of local marine taxa, including invasive or migratory species. Here, we plan to investigate the fish and crustaceans coastal marine composition, and its seasonal changes in the Oslo fjord initially over a one-year period using eDNA metabarcoding. eDNA samples will be collected across the Oslo fjord bottleneck at Dr?bak, every two months for a one year period and analysed through metabarcoding. Following bioinformatic filtering and analysis, results will be used as a proxy to assess marine biodiversity community composition in the channel throughout the year and compared to previous surveys conducted at the marine station. Additionally, the abundance of eDNA could reflect important demographic characteristics of communities such as population abundance, migration, and potentially reproduction period of different species.