Australian scientists are using DNA technology typically used in human medicine to find out what lives in the ocean and where, five liters at a time.
It’s a humble start, but the technology has the potential to fundamentally reshape marine conservation efforts around the world.
The $ 40 million initiative is a partnership between mining billionaire Andrew Forrest’s philanthropic Minderoo Foundation and Illumina, the world’s largest genome sequencing company.
Together, they demonstrated that the sophisticated high-throughput sequencing equipment typically found in temperature-controlled stable laboratories can be successfully deployed on a tilting and rotating research vessel.
Proof of concept has dramatically reduced the time it takes to identify marine creatures with DNA released into the water as they move.
Environmental DNA – or eDNA for short – is extremely valuable because it can tell researchers which species have recently been found in a particular location and potentially in what volume.
Dr. Steve Burnell leads Minderoo’s OceanOmics research project.
He says a laboratory aboard the Pangea Ocean Explorer has successfully analyzed a series of five-liter samples taken from various sites off the Australian coast.
The results were obtained at sea in just a day or two, which previously took weeks or months and required sending water samples to specialized laboratories.
Dr Burnell says there is still a mountain of work to be done to turn eDNA into a tool of global significance for marine science and conservation, but its potential is clear.
It could, for example, be used to detect invasive species in marine parks. It could also be used to track how climate change affects species spread and keep an eye on the status of commercial fish stocks.
Dr. Burnell says there is a lot of work to be done to get to this point. Minderoo is already working on other pieces of the puzzle, including building a research genome library for marine species.
“If I look for eDNA in seawater to tell me that there is a certain species of tuna or shark in a specific area, I first need to know the different tuna and shark reference genomes to compare it,” he says.
But so far, only 1% of the 20,000 known species of marine fish have had genome sequencing. Minderoo is working to change that.
“Reference genomes effectively provide the dictionary that allows us to use eDNA to revolutionize marine conservation. And we are investing in both ”.
Illumina Vice President Gretchen Weightman said the process aboard the ship demonstrated for the first time that high-throughput sequencing at sea can produce valuable genetic information within hours.
“Environmental DNA has a growing range of applications for monitoring freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems. It is important to demonstrate that our underlying technology is robust and can work … outside of laboratory standards. “