Freshwater eDNA package
Freshwater eDNA package
Our comprehensive freshwater panel provides an expansive approach to biological monitoring, encompassing species across the tree of life. This panel utilises 15 metabarcoding assays for detecting fish, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, macroinvertebrates, land and aquatic plants, algae, zooplankton, microorganisms and the invasive Corbicula golden clam. Learn more about our assay targets and scope here.
This analysis package is approved for NZFAP Plus accreditation.
For New Zealand river and stream samples, this panel also includes the taxon-independent community index (TICI) which is a new and powerful way to track aquatic ecological health. Please specify the ‘river/stream’ environment type when completing the sample submission form if you would like to receive TICI index values for your samples.
DNA metabarcoding offers a cost-effective and information-rich solution for monitoring entire biological communities. Instead of focusing on just a single species, this method produces a list of all DNA sequences detected within a broad taxonomic group (e.g. fish, insects, birds, mammals) and the number of times each appears in the sample. The DNA sequences are compared against a reference database to assign species names and characterise the community as a whole. This method requires an extensively tested set of PCR ‘primers’ and a well-curated reference database. We have developed and optimised a suite of primers especially suited to New Zealand’s unique flora and fauna, and curated an extensive reference database for each of these assays using data from both public and private sequence repositories.
Results are delivered via email in xlsx format, and include metadata, taxon list and sequence information. An example output file is available for download here.
Please remember to fill out our sample submission form prior to returning samples to the lab for analysis.