'Insect soup' holds DNA key for monitoring biodiversity
Aug. 5, 2013 — Scientists at the University of East Anglia have shown that sequencing the DNA of crushed up creepy crawlies can accelerate the monitoring and cataloguing of biodiversity around the world.
Share This:
Research published today in the journal Ecology Letters shows that a process known as 'metabarcoding' is much faster than and just as reliable as standard biodiversity datasets assembled with traditional labour-intensive methods.
The breakthrough means that changing environments and endangered species can be monitored more easily than ever before. It could help researchers find endangered tree kangaroos in Papua New Guinea, discover which moths will be wiped out by climate change, and restore nature to heathlands in the UK, rubber plantations in China, and oil-palm plantations in Sumatra.
Lead researcher Dr Douglas Yu, from UEA's school of Biological Sciences, said: "Every living organism contains DNA, and even small fragments of that DNA can be used to identify species.
"We collected lots of insects and other creepy-crawlies, ground them up into an 'insect soup', and read the DNA using sequencers that are now cheap enough to use weekly or even daily.
"We compared our results with high-quality datasets collected in Malaysia, China and the UK which combined more than 55,000 arthropod and bird specimens and took experts 2,505 hours to identify. These kinds of datasets are the gold standard for biodiversity monitoring but are so expensive to compile that that we cannot use them for regular monitoring. Thus, conservation biologists and environmental managers are forced to work with little information.
"We found that our 'soup' samples give us the same biodiversity information as the gold-standard datasets. They are also more comprehensive, many times quicker to produce, less reliant on taxonomic expertise, and they have the added advantage of being verifiable by third parties."
The findings are important because they show that metabarcoding can be used to reliably inform policy and environmental management decisions.
Dr Yu added: "If the environment changes for the better or for the worse, what lives in that environment changes as well. Insect soup becomes a sensitive thermometer for the state of nature.
"For instance, we showed that if the UK Forestry Commission ploughs up some of the grass-covered trackways that run between our endangered heathland habitats, populations of rare spiders, beetles, and other creepy-crawlies can reconnect along those trackways, helping to stave off extinction.
"We are now working with the WWF and Copenhagen University to apply the method to bloodsucking leeches to look for endangered mammals in Vietnamese and Laotian rainforests. By creating a 'leech soup' we can get a list of mammals and know more about whether park conservation is working."
Each soup combines hundreds to thousands of insects caught using insect traps. The numbers captured amount to a tiny fraction of their overall populations and pose no threat to endangered species.
The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council UK, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Science Foundation of China, and the Yunnan provincial government.
'Reliable, verifiable, and efficient monitoring of biodiversity via metabarcoding' is published in the journal Ecology Letters on August 5, 2013.
Welcome to SUV System Ltd!
SUV System Ltd is ISO 90012008 Certified electronics distributor with 10 years of experiences.
We have built up long term business relationship with about many companies which are stockers and authorized agents. we have a steady and reliable supply to meet customer's demands to the greatest extent .Confidently, we are able to lower your cost and support your business with our years of professional service.
SUV System Ltd is Electronic Components Distributor Supplies,Find Quality Electronic Components Supplies Products IC(Integrated Circuits),Connectors,Capacitor,Resistors,Diodes,Transistors,LED at Suvsystem.com. Sourcing Other Energy, Environment, Excess Inventory Products from Manufacturers and Suppliers at Suvsystem.com
Electronic Components distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com
Connectors Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Connectors-1.html
IC Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/IC(Integrated-Circuits)-1.html
LED Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/LED-1.html
Capacitor Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Capacitor-1.html
Transistor Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Transistors-1.html
Resistor Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Resistors-1.html
Diode Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Diodes-1.html
SUV System Ltd insists on the managing faith ofsincereness,speciality,foresight, win-win,so we build up stable-relationship customers located all over the world, including the States, Europe, Argentina, UAE, Malaysia, Australia,and India etc
we are focus on the following fields,and hope we can help you.
PANASONIC Resistors NXP Transistors Fairchild Semiconductor Transistors NEC Diodes High Precision Resistors Voltage Regulators Transistors Fast Recovery Diodes Thin Film Resistors INFLNEON Diodes ROHM Resistors SANYO IC TOSHIBA Transistors Ligitek LED Switches Texas Instruments(TI) IC Civil IC HARRIS IC chip Filter saws Resistor Arrays Vishay resistors ON Transistors Atmel IC LED Connectors Resistor Networks IR Diodes NEC Transistors Infineon Technologies Transistors Switching Diodes IR transistor YAGEO Resistors Chip Inductors Electronic News Thick Film Resistors MOTOROLA IC Cypress IC NS IC ON Diodes components Low Ohmic Resistors
http://www.suvsystem.com/a/4651.aspx
No comments:
Post a Comment