eDNA Metabarcoding Data and Conventional Fish and Amphibian Survey Data From the Grand River Watershed

The Grand River watershed is the largest watershed in southern Ontario, and its resident population is expected to increase over 50% by 2050. Very little research to date has focused on using eDNA metabarcoding to monitor fish and amphibian communities in the Grand River watershed. This research will compare results from eDNA metabarcoding against results from conventional fish and amphibian survey methods to develop a field-tested eDNA metabarcoding monitoring protocol specific to the Grand River watershed. This data set is collected for the Pillar 3 project titled “Next Generation Solutions to Ensure Healthy Water Resources for Future Generations”, under the Global Water Futures Program funded by Canada First Research Excellence Fund. This researcher is co-supervised by Drs. Barbara Katzenback and Paul Craig.

Species detection rates obtained from fish and amphibian methods conventional survey methods such as electrofishing, nocturnal acoustic surveys, visual encounter surveys and egg mass surveys will be compared to species detection rates obtained from eDNA metabarcoding. The species, length and weight of each fish will be recorded, and all amphibian species observed will be recorded by individual or calling code. Creeks and vernal pools in the Grand River watershed will be surveyed. Replicate 1 L eDNA metabarcoding samples will be collected from the center of each sampling site immediately before the implementation of conventional survey methods. eDNA samples will be filtered, extracted, and characterized via high-throughput sequencing. Through bioinformatic processing, processed sequence reads and taxonomic assignments from each sequenced field sample will be generated. This will allow comparison of eDNA metabarcoding species detection rates to species detection rates from conventional survey methods.

Servos, M., Ikert, J., Heather, G., Katzenback, B., Marjan, P., Dhiyebi, H., Harper, N., Craig, P., & Doxey, A. (2019). eDNA Metabarcoding Data and Conventional Fish and Amphibian Survey Data From the Grand River Watershed. Waterloo, Canada: Canadian Cryospheric Information Network (CCIN). (Unpublished Data).

https://www.polardata.ca/pdcsearch/PDCSearchDOI.jsp?doi_id=13084