From jaguars to pathogens: Simultaneous genetic detection of diverse taxa across biodiversity hotspots in the U.S.

Abstract

The management of biodiversity on arid landscapes can be challenging: Arid landscapes are often highly vulnerable to environmental and land-use changes. Moreover, these landscapes are home to rare and endemic species which are difficult to monitor. Environmental DNA sampling - the inference of species presence from genetic material in the environment - using high-throughput quantitative PCR (HT-qPCR) panels may be an efficient, cost-effective monitoring tool when multiple, taxonomically diverse taxa are of conservation concern. We validated and applied a HT-qPCR panel to detect ten native, invasive, and pathogenic taxa of relevance to conservation in the arid southwestern United States. We found that the sensitivity and specificity of our HT-qPCR platform was similar to that of single-taxon qPCR (ST-qPCR) (concordance on environmental samples 0.900–1.000, n = 315 samples) and that landscape patterns of detection were largely concordant with previous, conventional sampling. For example, our data reconstructed previously documented ecological patterns: Amphibian pathogens Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) and Ranavirus were rare in samples without detection of invasive American bullfrog (Rana catesbeianus; 1.9% and 1.2% respectively), but common where bullfrogs were detected (29.1% and 21.8% of samples). Data generation with HT-qPCR required substantially less time and reagents than would be required using ST-qPCR alone.

Citation

Sleeting, Michael F.; Wilcox, Taylor M.; Mason, Daniel H.; Franklin, Thomas W.; Schwartz, Michael K. 2024. From jaguars to pathogens: Simultaneous genetic detection of diverse taxa across biodiversity hotspots in the U.S. arid southwest. Conservation Genetics Resources. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-024-01375-1.