Check out this new paper that Jordan led with an incredible team of researchers across Newcastle University (including our very own Ben Hawthorne) and the University of Innsbruck, now published in Molecular Ecology Resources!
It’s been just over two decades since Bill Symondson (Jordan’s PhD supervisor), reviewed the potential of DNA-based dietary analysis for advancing the resolution, sensitivity and speed with which we can detect and identify trophic interactions. Since then, these approaches have seen widespread adoption (including in much of FERG’s research) and have drastically enhanced our understanding of a wide range of natural systems. Although decreasing costs and increasing accessibility have significantly broadened adoption in recent years, advances in the methods used for dietary analysis have arguably slowed.
Traditionally DNA-based ecological studies are, however, increasingly using RNA-based methods in the environmental monitoring space. Application to dietary analysis is still underrepresented despite immense potential and relatively straightforward implementation. Given the reduced stability of some RNA types, the detection of the food consumed using RNA can mitigate many longstanding methodological pitfalls of DNA-based dietary analyses, by (i) differentiating between living and dead resources, (ii) identifying potential false positives, and (iii) providing temporal context to detections, facilitating the construction of more informative and powerful ecological networks, including weighted or multilayer trophic networks. Detection of functional RNA may also present an opportunity to determine the functional context of both consumers and resources, and contextualise interactions or their impact on wider trophic networks.
With the increasing accessibility of RNA-based methods, their application to community and network ecology may significantly advance our ability to analyse and understand trophic interactions in complex natural systems. In this paper, we summarise RNA-based dietary analysis methods with reference to recent literature in trophic ecology, and identify areas that would benefit from more research. By summarising the immediately identifiable advances and constraints that dietary RNA presents, we hope to stimulate widespread adoption of these approaches and advance integration of RNA-based analyses into trophic ecological research.
This was a great collaborative endeavour that started with some workshops run as part of a NERC Discipline Hopping Award, but was extended through wider collaboration and discussion with a brilliant team of researchers!
Check out the full paper for all of the juicy details:
Foraging Ecology Research Group 