- 1University of Zurich, Dept. Evolutionary Biology & Environment, Switzerland (rosetta.blackman@eawag.ch)
- 2Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Zurich, Switzerland
- 3Institute of Geography & Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Environmental DNA (eDNA) consists of genetic fragments suspended in the water column. Recently, it has been heralded as an effective tool for biodiversity monitoring (Blackman et al., 2024), resulting in a considerable diversity of studies and data collection. Most of the data from these studies are published in open access repositories (e.g., ENA, eDNAexplorer, Genbank) but have minimal or no re-analysis, therefore offering a currently up-to-date resource. Recently, eDNA observations have been explored as a tool for understanding hydrological processes (Good et al., 2018; Mächler et al., 2021; URycki et al., 2024). Here, we explore published eDNA datasets that contain hydrologic data or are relevant for hydrology.
We have compiled published eDNA datasets that might also inform hydrologic process knowledge or be otherwise relevant for hydrology. For the moment, this is a metanalysis of those datasets and their publications, but as this work continues, we are exploring genetic and hydrologic data mining to repurpose this data for something other than its original intended objectives. In this presentation, we give an overview of our proposed workflow for hydrological reanalysis of published genetic data and define a baseline for large-scale reanalysis and future projects that want to satisfy both objectives (i.e. understand biology and hydrologic processes).
References
Blackman, R., Couton, M., Keck, F., Kirschner, D., Carraro, L., Cereghetti, E., Perrelet, K., Bossart, R., Brantschen, J., Zhang, Y., & Altermatt, F. (2024). Environmental DNA: The next chapter. Molecular Ecology, e17355. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.17355
Good, S. P., URycki, D. R., & Crump, B. C. (2018). Predicting Hydrologic Function With Aquatic Gene Fragments. Water Resources Research, 54(3), 2424–2435. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017wr021974
Mächler, E., Salyani, A., Walser, J.-C., Larsen, A., Schaefli, B., Altermatt, F., & Ceperley, N. (2021). Environmental DNA simultaneously informs hydrological and biodiversity characterization of an Alpine catchment. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 25(2), 735–753. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-735-2021
URycki, D. R., Good, S. P., Crump, B. C., Ceperley, N. C., & Brooks, J. R. (2024). Microbial community storm dynamics signal sources of “old” stream water. PLOS ONE, 19(9), e0306896. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306896
How to cite: Blackman, R., Ammann, U., and Ceperley, N.: Reanalysis of published eDNA for Hydrologic Process Understanding , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9194, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9194, 2025.
