Detection and analysis of airborne environmental DNA from terrestrial plant communities

Date

2017-08

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Abstract

Traditional terrestrial vegetation surveys have been used, in some capacity, for thousands of years to characterize ecosystems. Consideration of environmental DNA (eDNA), genetic material shed from an organism into its environment, could change the way plant communities are studied. In this thesis, I explore the utility of airborne eDNA as a plant community surveying method. In Chapter II, I designed an airborne eDNA survey to test the ability to capture airborne eDNA. Additionally, I tested several methods of extraction and amplification to determine the most efficient methods. It was possible to detect airborne eDNA, but these samples contained a lot of inhibitors. Additionally, there were differences in results based upon the extraction kit and primers that were used, impacting the way these studies will be analyzed in the future. In Chapter III, I sought to understand the ecology of airborne eDNA and how pollination syndromes impact airborne eDNA, leading me to design species-specific primers for blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) and honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa). A traditional survey was also conducted to confirm the abundance of these species and compared three different dust traps to determine the most accurate way to detect eDNA. It was possible to detect both species I was surveying for, although the choice of dust trap impacted my ability to detect airborne eDNA. Lastly, not every sampling site produced the same results, indicating there are external factors such as weather conditions or local plant abundances that could impact the collection of eDNA. These results help to show the utility of airborne eDNA and the proper methods to capture and analyze eDNA samples. Future studies should build off of this work and utilize fields such as metagenomics to link airborne eDNA to all the species within a plant community.

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Keywords

Pollen, eDNA, Noninvasive genetic sampling, qPCR, Vegetation survey

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