Environmental DNA (eDNA) Metabarcoding as a Sustainable Tool …
219
5 Integrating eDNA Metabarcoding in Intensive Coastal
Biodiversity Assessment
The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs was formally adopted in September
2015 and it addresses the three inter-related elements of sustainable development,
they are, economic, growth social inclusion and environmental sustainability. Parallel
to this goal, this research will address SDG 14 which is life below water. One of
the many challenges to achieving Agenda 2030 is how do we work across these
three elements in order to achieve sustainable development. For this purpose, we
are relating this study of eDNA metabarcoding as a method to expose sustainable
practice of coastal biodiversity assessment.
As mentioned earlier, the coastal ecosystems are under a lot of pressure from
anthropogenic stressors including climate change, pollution and overexploitation
(WWF 2014). As a result, health degradation in freshwater and marine ecosystem
globally is observed, especially in terms of biodiversity loss (Butchart et al. 2010),
species invasions (Strayer et al. 2006) and water quality (Foley et al. 2005). Traditional diversity sampling methods for coastal biodiversity assessment include nets,
visual observation, hooks and lines and many more could prove to be a disaster
to many sensitive taxa. In many countries, monitoring commercially important fish
stocks are done by using bottom trawl surveys to get data for fish abundance, their
distribution and diversity. Much to disappointment, these bottom trawlers damage the
marine environment and slowly it will have detrimental effect on the fishing industries. This will have negative impacts to the livelihood and the socio-economics of
the people who depend on it. Therefore, sustainable method in the monitoring and
management is required in sustaining the health of the ecosystem.
Under the implementation of the university as a Living Lab, the eDNA metabarcoding method is proposed to be a new technique in achieving large-scale species
diversity acquisition without harming the environment. This method will stress on
the important of SDG 14—life below water in highlighting the importance of species
documentation in order to assess the health and socio-economics value of an ecosystem, especially in sustainable fisheries management and conservation to achieve food
security. This is imperative because in 2013, fish accounted for about 17% of the
global population’s intake of animal protein and 6.7% of all protein consumed and
global total of capture fishery production in 2014 was 93.4 million tonnes, of which
81.5 million tonnes from marine waters and 11.9 million tonnes from inland waters
(FAO 2016). Therefore, species documentation is necessary in keeping track of biodiversity values and resources to a country’s social and economic development. The
eDNA metabarcoding methods can speed up species documentation by building an
inventory for species diversity and it is able to catalogue and map species distribution
and associations, indirectly, linking these habitat distributions with the natural and
anthropogenic processes influencing them.
Recently, a large scale eDNA metabarcoding study was done by looking at vertebrate biodiversity in Monterey Bay, California (Closek et al. 2016). The fluctuation of
dominance between Sardinops sagax, pacific sardine and Engraulis mordax, north-
219
5 Integrating eDNA Metabarcoding in Intensive Coastal
Biodiversity Assessment
The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs was formally adopted in September
2015 and it addresses the three inter-related elements of sustainable development,
they are, economic, growth social inclusion and environmental sustainability. Parallel
to this goal, this research will address SDG 14 which is life below water. One of
the many challenges to achieving Agenda 2030 is how do we work across these
three elements in order to achieve sustainable development. For this purpose, we
are relating this study of eDNA metabarcoding as a method to expose sustainable
practice of coastal biodiversity assessment.
As mentioned earlier, the coastal ecosystems are under a lot of pressure from
anthropogenic stressors including climate change, pollution and overexploitation
(WWF 2014). As a result, health degradation in freshwater and marine ecosystem
globally is observed, especially in terms of biodiversity loss (Butchart et al. 2010),
species invasions (Strayer et al. 2006) and water quality (Foley et al. 2005). Traditional diversity sampling methods for coastal biodiversity assessment include nets,
visual observation, hooks and lines and many more could prove to be a disaster
to many sensitive taxa. In many countries, monitoring commercially important fish
stocks are done by using bottom trawl surveys to get data for fish abundance, their
distribution and diversity. Much to disappointment, these bottom trawlers damage the
marine environment and slowly it will have detrimental effect on the fishing industries. This will have negative impacts to the livelihood and the socio-economics of
the people who depend on it. Therefore, sustainable method in the monitoring and
management is required in sustaining the health of the ecosystem.
Under the implementation of the university as a Living Lab, the eDNA metabarcoding method is proposed to be a new technique in achieving large-scale species
diversity acquisition without harming the environment. This method will stress on
the important of SDG 14—life below water in highlighting the importance of species
documentation in order to assess the health and socio-economics value of an ecosystem, especially in sustainable fisheries management and conservation to achieve food
security. This is imperative because in 2013, fish accounted for about 17% of the
global population’s intake of animal protein and 6.7% of all protein consumed and
global total of capture fishery production in 2014 was 93.4 million tonnes, of which
81.5 million tonnes from marine waters and 11.9 million tonnes from inland waters
(FAO 2016). Therefore, species documentation is necessary in keeping track of biodiversity values and resources to a country’s social and economic development. The
eDNA metabarcoding methods can speed up species documentation by building an
inventory for species diversity and it is able to catalogue and map species distribution
and associations, indirectly, linking these habitat distributions with the natural and
anthropogenic processes influencing them.
Recently, a large scale eDNA metabarcoding study was done by looking at vertebrate biodiversity in Monterey Bay, California (Closek et al. 2016). The fluctuation of
dominance between Sardinops sagax, pacific sardine and Engraulis mordax, north-