Freitag 19.05.2017
40:00 – 16:00 Uhr
HS 413 (1. OG) NAWI
Traditionally, environmental impact assessments (EIA) in aquaculture such as salmon farming are based on the collection and identification of macrofaunal indicator organisms. For several reasons, this monitoring strategy is very tedious and expensive. Therefore, concerted efforts are in order to develop alternative monitoring systems. One very promising approach is environmental DNA barcoding, which relies on the identification of short DNA tags with indicator qualities for organic pollution. In a pilot project conducted along a transect of decreasing organic input from a Scottish salmon farm, we have evaluated the potential indicator powers of protistan communities for EIA. We found a significant change and species turnover in protistan community composition along this transect, corroborating well with the benchmark data obtained from traditional macrofauna monitoring of the same sampling sites. Our study revealed high variations between protistan communities collected in the vicinity of fish farms and at distant locations. We found evidence for species richness decrease in impacted sites. Species turnover presents itself as a function of organic input to the sediment. In conclusion, protistan metabarcoding appears as a rapid and accurate tool for the evaluation of the quality of aquatic ecosystems. Hence, we propose the integration of protist metabarcoding in future biomonitoring projects as a complement of traditional methods and a source of new biosensors for environmental impact assessment in aquaculture.