While macroinvertebrates (macros) have long been used by environmental scientists to assess ecosystem health – many mine sites, for instance, conduct annual surveys of macro populations. However, the methodology is not without problems.
Identifying macroinvertebrates is a time consuming task – and it’s definitely a skill. (We have seen macros identified in reports that don’t even exist in Central Queensland!). Identification down to species level is the domain of just a few experts.
Genomics to the rescue
Like most fields in the world of science, there is progress in this area as well – the use of genomics (the study of DNA and RNA) – to identify waterbug species.
As the cost of genomic identification (like all technologies) decreases, the technology becomes more widely used.
Being able to identify samples down to species level would provide us with an enormous amount of additional, valuable information about our river ecosystems.
But wait – there’s more…(species that is)
The use of genomics is also identifying new species. What were thought to be physically identical macros are actually being shown to be separate species.
To read more about “DNA Barcoding”, head over to this recent article:
https://theconversation.com/how-healthy-is-your-river-ask-a-waterbug-43842