The ocean is changing fast everywhere: eDNA as a tool for rapid, widespread bio-assessment

Ocean waters are awash with tiny bits and pieces of marine creatures - fish scales, parts of shrimp legs, fragments of algae, whole plankton, and more. These contain DNA, which can be extracted and sequenced to find out what species were there. The tool - environmental DNA - has opened up a new way to monitor hundreds of species in marine ecosystems from algae to whales in a rapid and cost-effective way. Learn about the use of this tool in West Coast kelp forests, how we are partnering with the Northern Chumash tribe to launch an eDNA study of the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, and how combining new eDNA tools with traditional ecological knowledge opens up new partnerships for understanding ocean life and how it is rapidly changing.

Speaker

Steve Palumbi is a Professor of Oceans and Biology at Stanford Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey. Work at the Hopkins Marine Station focuses on how kelp, sea urchins, abalone, and mussels respond to short-term environmental changes and to environmental shifts over small spatial scales. Steve has used genetic detective work to identify whales, sharks, and fish for sale in retail markets, and is genetically mapping corals resistant to climate change. His work has been used in the design of the current network of marine protected areas in California, seafood labeling laws in Japan and the United States, and in numerous TV and film documentaries, including the 2017 PBS series Big Pacific. Steve's latest book for non-scientists, The Extreme Life of the Sea, is about the amazing species in the sea, written with Steve's son and novelist, Anthony.