Background
The ongoing biodiversity crisis is pushing many species to extinction due to habitat loss, pollution, climate change, and other human activities. Broad-scale insect declines have been especially alarming because insects play an important role for ecosystem functioning and food production through their contribution to pollination, soil health, and food webs. In this context, monitoring of insect biodiversity in both space and time is crucial to rapidly identify potential declines and undertake timely conservation measures. However, monitoring insect diversity is challenging because insects are small, highly diverse and require considerable taxinomic expertise to be able to visually identify the different species. Taxonomic identification and manual sorting also labour-and time-intensive, which is an important barrier for the upscaling of monitoring efforts.
Environmental DNA (eDNA) is a new method for studying biodiversity, relying on the sequencing of DNA material left behind by organisms in different substrates such as soil, water, or even air. As the method does not require capturing any organisms, it represents a fast, non-invasive way to detect and monitor biodiversity, including insects. Wild plants represent a good eDNA substrate for insect monioring as the majority of insects rely on plants for shelter, food and reproduction, and thus insect eDNA is left on the plant. Meanwhile, wild herbs are collected annually at scale from across Europe to be used for herbal tea infusions such as camomille, linden or peppermint. Herbel tea sampling therefore represents a valuable sample resource and provides a unique opportunity to harness the already collected material to monitor insect biodiversity based on eDNA.
Project description
In this Masters project, you will develop an eDNA protocol for the detection and monitoring of insects from commercially available herbal tea preparations. You will analyse a range of plant species and tissue types (flowers, stems and roots) to characterise the insect communities and functional groups (pollinators, herbivores, predators) detected. You will also validate eDNA detections from herbal tea preparations using controled experiments by exposing fresh potted plants to known insect species before sequencing.
Main tasks: Design and carry out the experimental set-up, carry out laboratory work (DNA extraction, PCR amplification and sequencing), bioinformatic and data analyses, literature review and writing.
Competences: We are looking for a curiosity-driven person with interest for biodiversity, conservation, molecular ecology and innovative methods for ecological monitoring.
What We Offer
We offer an inclusive and stimulating research environment where you are encouraged to join the research group activities and engage with other students and researchers in the group.
If you are interested
Please contact us for via email.
Stefaniya Kamenova (s.k.kamenova@nhm.uio.no)
Andrew Foote (a.d.foote@ibv.uio.no)
Mark Ravinet (mark.ravinet@ibv.uio.no)