Developing metabarcoding approaches to describe the fish diversity within a diversity of aquatic habitats

Evaluating the impact of multiple stressors on aquatic ecosystems often requires robust biodiversity estimates. Traditional methods for sampling fish communities are very costly, may have a significant share of inaccuracy and require specialized taxonomic expertise and have numerous other inherent limitations.
The general objective of our proposed project is:
to develop and validate genomic tools that will allow accurate monitoring of biodiversity and to compare results from traditional sampling techniques with biodiversity estimates based on refined metabarcoding approaches to describe the fish and diversity within a diversity of impacted aquatic habitats;
to develop, test and apply advanced environmental genomics tools to predict and mitigate the responses of aquatic communities under environmental stressors.

Faculty Supervisor:

Melania Cristescu

Student:

Joanne Littlefair

Partner:

WSP

Discipline:

Biology

Sector:

Environmental industry

University:

McGill University