BARCODING AND METABARCODING: EXPLORING EXCITING NEW OPPORTUNITIES IN ECOLOGY

BARCODING AND METABARCODING: EXPLORING EXCITING NEW OPPORTUNITIES IN ECOLOGY

Pedro Beja (CIBIO-InBIO, Portugal) | September 11, 2018 | 48th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Vienna, Austria

The advent of ever more powerful DNA sequencing technology has opened up possibilities in the biological sciences that were unimaginable just a decade ago. The field of ecology is no exception, with DNA barcoding in combination with high-throughput sequencing (metabarcoding) generating unprecedented capacity to describe complex ecological patterns and processes. However, mainstreaming these new tools in ecological research has remained relatively slow, mainly because they still involve a range of conceptual, methodological and technical challenges. Here I provide an ecologists’ perspective to barcoding and metabarcoding, using the experience gained at my lab to illustrate the power and some limitations of these molecular tools. First, I show the importance of building comprehensive barcode reference collections to achieve ecologically meaningful taxonomic identifications. This is challenging, but by working closely with taxonomists we have been able to assemble a collection of >1500 arthropod species, which helped detecting new exotic species, solving some taxonomic problems, and highlighting many others that warrant further investigation. Second, I discuss the need to optimise field, lab and bioinformatics pipelines in relation to the specific research questions of ecologists. The considerable efforts required to meet this general goal are illustrated through case studies assessing impacts of biological and technical replication on metabarcoding results, testing multi-marker approaches to overcome primer biases, and developing procedures for non-destructive metabarcoding of invertebrate bulk samples. Third, I present some practical applications showing how the high taxonomic resolution achieved through metabarcoding can provide major insights on biotic interactions and on community assembly of nocturnal arthropods in agroecosystems. Finally, I take a look into oncoming technological developments that will provide further opportunities to ecological research.