The implementation and characterization of electron transfer dissociation (ETD) on an ion mobility enabled Q-TOF mass spectrometer

Comunicaciones a congreso

Further development of high-sensitivity targeted MRM Assays for peptide and protein quantification

Comunicaciones a congreso

Environmental filtering of macroinvertebrate traits influences ecosystem functioning in a large river floodplain

Article describes how the biodiversity–ecosystem function hypothesis postulates that higher biodiversity is correlated with faster ecosystem process rates and increased ecosystem stability in fluctuating environments. The authors examined linkages among floodplain wetland habitats, invertebrate communities and their associated traits, and ecosystem function across 60 sites within the floodplain wetlands of the lower Wolastoq, Saint John River, New Brunswick

DNA metabarcoding reveals metacommunity dynamics in a threatened boreal wetland wilderness

Too often, ecological monitoring studies are designed without understanding whether they have sufficient statistical power to detect changes beyond natural variability. The Peace–Athabasca Delta is North America’s largest inland delta, within a World Heritage area, and is currently threatened by human development. Using multispecies occupancy models we show that the wetland macroinvertebrate community is highly diverse, and spatial and temporal turnover are so high that composition is nearly random, emphasizing stochastic processes of assembly. Using DNA metabarcoding, our study detected more taxa, both overall and per sample, than traditional morphology-based sample processing, increasing our power to detect ecosystem change. Improving data quality and quantifying error are key to delivering effective monitoring and understanding the dynamic structure of the metacommunity.The complexity and natural variability of ecosystems present a challenge for reliable detection of change due to anthropogenic influences. This issue is exacerbated by necessary trade-offs that reduce the quality and resolution of survey data for assessments at large scales. The Peace–Athabasca Delta (PAD) is a large inland wetland complex in northern Alberta, Canada. Despite its geographic isolation, the PAD is threatened by encroachment of oil sands mining in the Athabasca watershed and hydroelectric dams in the Peace watershed. Methods capable of reliably detecting changes in ecosystem health are needed to evaluate and manage risks. Between 2011 and 2016, aquatic macroinvertebrates were sampled across a gradient of wetland flood frequency, applying both microscope-based morphological identification and DNA metabarcoding. By using multispecies occupancy models, we demonstrate that DNA metabarcoding detected a much broader range of taxa and more taxa per sample compared to traditional morphological identification and was essential to identifying significant responses to flood and thermal regimes. We show that family-level occupancy masks high variation among genera and quantify the bias of barcoding primers on the probability of detection in a natural community. Interestingly, patterns of community assembly were nearly random, suggesting a strong role of stochasticity in the dynamics of the metacommunity. This variability seriously compromises effective monitoring at local scales but also reflects resilience to hydrological and thermal variability. Nevertheless, simulations showed the greater efficiency of metabarcoding, particularly at a finer taxonomic resolution, provided the statistical power needed to detect change at the landscape scale