Oral Paper

         Biodiversity Informatics & Herbarium Digitization

Announcing the eDNA Explorer web tool for managers and researchers to process and share eDNA qPCR and metabarcoding projects

Presenting Author
Rachel Meyer
Description
Environmental DNA is a rapidly growing tool for bioinventory and tracking environmental change. Single species qPCR assays and cross-kingdom multiplex metabarcoding are some of the now familiar approaches to census species non-invasively, from soil, water, leaf surfaces, honey, air, and other substrates. In conservation and management, rapid biodiversity monitoring needs are growing as environments experience climate change, land use intensification, keystone species dropout and increased pressure to fulfill ecosystem services. In an initial uX study on managers and researchers working on these challenges, we found that there's a lot of need for eDNA and interest in such data, but adoption of eDNA methods requires collaborations over years between managers who are constantly acclimating to new policies and the researchers who must acclimate to the rapidly evolving state of science around eDNA.  We are acting on an opportunity to help ease collaboration activities from describing assays to data manaagement and comparing eDNA results to remote sensing (via Google Earth Engine) or visual on-the-ground observations such as from GBIF. We created the eDNA Explorer web tool for people to learn about projects, events, and trainings, to find resources and protocols, and to manage their own projects. Our tool includes a reference database maker and Tronko, the first phylogeny-based taxonomy assignment software that can handle rich NGS data as part of reference DNA databases. We present use cases of the website for biodiversity inventories of flora, fauna, and microbes from the Los Angeles River and other locations recovering from disturbances from alien invasive species to wildfires. Our hope is that the eDNA Explorer will catalyze accessibility and interoperability of eDNA results across projects, and will help create a culture of sharing information prior to publication, which will help ease collaborations, improve project success rates, and speed up appropriate adoption of eDNA as a tool in the biodiversity manager's toolkit.