Oceanic Institute of HPU scientist publishes in Ecology and Evolution

Brett Olds, Ph.D.

OI of HPU Shrimp Department research scientist Brett P. Olds, Ph.D. and a team of researchers, including OI of HPU Research Associate Mark Renshaw, had their paper, “Estimating species richness using environmental DNA”, published in Ecology and Evolution.     

The team assessed fish communities in a stream using two methods, depletion-based electrofishing and environmental DNA metabarcoding (eDNA) from water samples, to test the hypothesis that eDNA provides an alternative means of determining species richness and species identities for a natural ecosystem. Their results indicate that eDNA can not only identify all twelve species captured with traditional sampling methods, but also the additional species estimated to be in the stream. Therefore, modern genetic approaches have the potential to transform our ability to build a more complete list of species for ecological investigations and inform management of aquatic ecosystems.

Olds is a molecular biologist with extensive experience in molecular genetics and aquatic ecology. More on Olds here.