Environmental DNA methods for the analysis of macroorganismal populations

Abstract

Environmental DNA (eDNA) methods have\xa0been widely used to investigate the distribution and abundance/biomass of macroorganisms. eDNA methods analyze DNA collected\xa0directly from\xa0the environment, such as from water, soil, and air. The techniques\xa0have been applied to many taxa inhabiting various aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.\xa0The recent development of eDNA methods has\xa0revolutionized\xa0the way we assess macroorganisms in natural environments.In this talk,\xa0I will present current developments of eDNA methodology, especially with regard to population analysis using various DNA measurement methods. For example, 1) eDNA was used to assess fish\xa0species distributions and abundance/biomass (Takahara et al. 2012, Doi et al. 2017a), 2)\xa0quantitative PCR of sedimentary DNA was applied to sediment core samples to detect the DNA of three dominant fish species\xa0spanning the last 300 years (Kuwae et al. 2020), and 3) new methods for sampling eDNA from water (Doi et al. 2017b)\xa0and on-site measurement (Doi et al. 2020) will be presented.\xa0I end by addressing the need for standardized\xa0protocols for eDNA monitoring to enable broader uptake of eDNA technology (Minamoto et al. 2021).