Hyderabad-based researchers develop new method to assess total biodiversity of any ecosystem

The CCMB study, published in the journal Ecological Indicators, showed that the novel method can detect all kinds of organisms, including viruses, bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes from just a few litres of water sample without any direct capture or counting of species

Hyderabad: Researchers from the Hyderabad-based Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES) at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) have developed a new non-invasive method to assess the total biodiversity of any ecosystem by sequencing the DNA fragments found in the environmental samples such as water, soil or air.

The CCMB study, published in the journal Ecological Indicators (October 31, 2023), showed that the novel method can detect all kinds of organisms, including viruses, bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes such as fungi, plants, insects, birds, fishes etc from just a few litres of water sample without any direct capture or counting of species.

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Traditional monitoring methods require extensive taxonomic expertise, and are not scalable to large ecosystems because they can be expensive, labour-intensive and time-consuming.

To overcome these limitations, CCMB researchers S. Manu and Dr. G. Umapathy developed a new process to extract and read the genetic information encoded in free-floating environmental DNA (eDNA), which is shed by all organisms into their surroundings through natural processes during their lifetime or after death, a press release said.

In this new method, which was tested in Chilika Lagoon in Odisha, the researchers filtered out eDNA from environmental samples, read their sequences, and thus, identify the source of the eDNA.

Director of CCMB, Dr Vinay K. Nandicoori said this new cutting-edge method of using e-DNA is cheaper, faster, and highly scalable to large freshwater and marine ecosystems which can help in monitoring and conserving the rich biodiversity of our country.