The Core of the Matter-Importance of Identification Method and Biological Replication for Benthic Marine Monitoring.

Benthic macrofauna are important and widely used biological indicators of marine ecosystems as they have limited mobility and therefore integrate the effects of local environmental stressors over time. Recently, environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis has provided a potentially more resource-efficient approach for benthic biomonitoring than traditional morphology-based methods. Several studies have compared eDNA with morphology-based monitoring, but few have compared the two approaches using the exact same sediment cores.

Monitoring of environmental DNA from nonindigenous species of algae, dinoflagellates and animals in the North East Atlantic.

Monitoring the distribution of marine nonindigenous species is a challenging task. To support this monitoring, we developed and validated the specificity of 12 primer-probe assays for detection of environmental DNA (eDNA) from marine species, all nonindigenous to Europe. The species include sturgeons, a Pacific red algae, oyster thief, a freshwater hydroid from the Black Sea, Chinese mitten crab, Pacific oyster, warty comb jelly, sand gaper, round goby, pink salmon, rainbow trout and North American mud crab.

Monitoring of noble, signal and narrow-clawed crayfish using environmental DNA from freshwater samples.

For several hundred years freshwater crayfish (Crustacea-Decapoda-Astacidea) have played an important ecological, cultural and culinary role in Scandinavia. However, many native populations of noble crayfish Astacus astacus have faced major declines during the last century, largely resulting from human assisted expansion of non-indigenous signal crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus that carry and transmit the crayfish plague pathogen. In Denmark, also the non-indigenous narrow-clawed crayfish Astacus leptodactylus has expanded due to anthropogenic activities.