Investigating temporal impacts of reintroduced beavers at Cropton Forest on biodiversity using environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding.

Project Description

Organisms release DNA into the environment via shed cells, waste material or decaying matter. Environmental DNA (eDNA) can then be captured by sampling water, soil, or air, without disturbing wildlife. eDNA metabarcoding is a rapidly emerging technique for generating millions of DNA sequences from a single eDNA sample; enabling researchers to describe entire communities of microorganisms, animals and plants, and revolutionizing the field of biodiversity monitoring (Lawson Handley, 2015, 2020; Harper, et al., 2019). Our group at the University of Hull has demonstrated that eDNA metabarcoding is a powerful tool for describing and studying impacts on biodiversity, and for evaluating ecological status of water bodies (e.g. Hänfling et al., 2016; Harper et al., 2019; 2020; Lawson Handley et al., 2019; Sales et al., 2020).

We are requesting funding to support a PhD project, based at the University of Hull, which started in January 2022. The project aims to use eDNA metabarcoding to investigate the impacts of beavers on entire ecological communities, across a number of reintroduction trials within the UK, and wild beaver populations in Scotland and Finland.

Cropton Forest, being a local site, is a key location for generating temporal eDNA data and trialling methods, for example, to decide on the optimal time of year for sampling and the number of samples needed to accurately reflect biodiversity. In December 2021 we trialled a new invertebrate metabarcoding pipeline on 6 water samples collected from Cropton, and detected over 120 species, including mayflies, stoneflies and caddisflies, beetles, molluscs, flies, amphipods and signal crayfish. During the spring and summer, we predict this species tally will be considerably higher. We have also detected a number of vertebrates on site, including water vole, common shrew, red and roe deer, palmate newt, bullhead, and brown trout.

We aim to collect and analyse eDNA samples from within the Cropton Forest beaver enclosure, and directly outside it, at several time points throughout the year. This will provide a comprehensive inventory of the biodiversity at the site and how it changes over the course of a year, and an understanding of how beavers impact the biodiversity in their immediate surroundings, compared to the wider habitat.

Costs: We are requesting £2000 in funding to support this work. Costs per sample for eDNA metabarcoding are £40, and this funding will therefore cover the processing of 50 samples.