Springs as sentinels: rapid biodiversity assessments in an era of global ecological change

Authors: Abbey Paulson, Andrew P. Martin

Year: 2014 (xlvi)

Abstract

Water in the desert has always been a rare and invaluable resource, but in the American Southwest it has become ever more so with increased aquifer pumping, river diversions, aquatic invasions, and regional predictions of a warmer, drier future. In the face of these drivers of global change, the persistence of desert spring systems and the unique biota they harbor has become a major conservation concern. The effects of the aforementioned phenomena on the ecosystems of desert springs are indirect, through habitat loss or degradation from reduced water levels and flow rates, and direct, through predation and competition posed by aquatic invaders such as crayfish and bullfrogs. The imperiled future of native and endemic biota found in desert spring systems and associated habitats highlights the need for baseline biodiversity surveys, as well as an efficient tool to conduct such surveys, to enable tracking of changes in community compositions. To facilitate rapid characterization of whole-ecosystem communities, we employed environmental DNA (eDNA) survey methods to assess compositions of bacteria, eukaryotes, and archaeans in the springs of Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada. This survey method provides a snapshot of biotic assemblages across the tree of life, using minimally invasive sampling techniques, and bioinformatic tools to analyze large amounts of DNA data (> 10 million sequences) generated through massively-parallel sequencing. This research provides baseline biodiversity information for tracking ecological change in Ash Meadows, and also exists as a case study for timely and cost-effective biodiversity assessments in threatened spring systems throughout the region.

Resumen

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