144th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society

August 17 - 21, 2014

Molecular ecologists can now take advantage of great advances in sequencing technologies and analytical methods, but the potential of genetic tools in aquatic management and conservation is still underexploited. In particular, environmental DNA (eDNA) is one of the latest tools in applied molecular ecology with a huge, still untapped potential for faunal monitoring. The eDNA method is a novel sampling approach for macro-organism that detects traces of cellular or extracellular DNA in the soil and water from sources such feces, secreted mucous membranes, gametes and skin cells. The method has great potential to increase the power of detection and quantification, spatial coverage and frequency of sampling for aquatic ecosystems. Large-scale studies are often limited by the lack of broad spatial and temporal data. The analysis of eDNA could be a revolutionary tool to overcome this problem without physically manipulating the organisms. At local scale, eDNA has been shown to be a promising method to early detection of invasive species, but the method is also gaining interest for broader scopes for a large number of marine and freshwater ecosystems such as collecting data for species at risk, species that are difficult to capture and fisheries management in general. However, integrating eDNA with management strategies has important scientific challenges: (1) developing molecular techniques (specific markers and probes design, DNA extraction, traditional PCR and quantitative PCR), (2) developing and standardizing sampling methods among species and habitats and (3) developing new statistical analyses. In this context, the goal of the symposium is to advance the field by uniting researchers working on both improving eDNA methods as well as showing its potential for fisheries management.