Diatoms of North AmericaChecking in with diatoms, eDNA, and environmental assessments
Description: Over the past decade, DNA metabarcoding has moved from an emerging technique to a widely adopted tool in biodiversity monitoring and environmental assessment. In this talk, I will highlight how these molecular approaches have transformed diatom research, from ecological surveys and phylogenetic insights to regulatory assessments that rely on diatom community composition - and what more there is to do. I will explore how environmental DNA has expanded the scope of biodiversity monitoring more broadly, including promising applications such as airDNA and hybridization-based capture enrichment. Finally, I will connect these advances to modern environmental assessment frameworks, discussing recent advances such as large-scale multimetric indices and integrated approaches that bring molecular data to the forefront of ecological decision-making.
Intended audience: This talk is aimed at anyone interested in molecular approaches to diatom research and, more broadly, biodiversity monitoring.
