FERG co-hosts the first DIETS Symposium at Durham University!

After months of planning and build-up, we just held the first Dietary Interactions in Ecology Through Sequencing (DIETS) Symposium! Mia and Jordan co-ran the symposium with Andreanna Welch and Beth Jetson from Durham University – a dream team! It went incredibly well and we had an absolute blast. Read below for some of our thoughts, reports and insights!

A bit of history

As a bit of background, the last related event was arguably the 3rd Symposium on the Molecular Analysis of Trophic Interactions at SLU, Uppsala, Sweden in 2017. This was an incredible event which brought together tens of people working on the molecular analysis of trophic interactions. This iteration of the conference was particularly interesting given it was joined with the 3rd Symposium on Ecological Networks (EcoNet, which we co-hosted here in Newcastle last year)! A follow-up was planned in Canada in 2020 but, much as most things that year, those plans were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, almost ten years on from the last event, we thought it was the perfect time to start it up again!

SLU, Uppsala, where the third symposium on the molecular analysis of trophic interactions was held.

A buzzing poster session during the third symposium on the molecular analysis of trophic interactions.

We’re also at a time of unprecedented interest and uptake of molecular methods for the analysis of trophic and wider ecological interactions. According to a quick Web of Science search, we’ve seen an almost exponential (bar a couple of blips) increase in the number of papers mentioning molecular methods and trophic interactions. Similarly, we’ve see an incredibly sharp increase in the number of people Google searching dietary metabarcoding and molecular dietary analysis (so sharp, in fact, that it renders everything before this year negligible in comparison). International standards are also being introduced for the analysis of environmental DNA, establishing a precedent for consideration of best practices in the adjacent practice of molecular dietary analysis. All of this to say that we felt it was the perfect time to come back together as a community.

The number of articles related to molecular dietary analysis has risen steeply in recent years.

Even the number of people Google searching molecular dietary analysis has very recently steeply increased.

The historic setting

The DIETS Symposium was held in the beautiful historic city of Durham, just a stone’s throw away from Newcastle and home to Andreanna and Beth’s research group and labs. Durham was an ideal choice given its historic charm and nice walkable size, not to mention the excellent conferencing facilities on offer within the university. We even managed to hold the conference dinner and one of the plenaries in Durham Cathedral, a significant historic building and UNESCO world heritage site!

A beautiful view of historic Durham’s gorgeous riverside.

The conference dinner, held inside Durham Cathedral, a UNESCO world heritage site.

Eco-flow workshop

To kick the conference off, we had an incredible one-day workshop from University College London’s Eco-flow team, specifically Chris Wyatt and Fernando Duarte Frutos! They talked through how to use command line, run Nextflow pipelines and how to use a new containerised bioinformatics pipeline they have been developing with Jordan which analysed nanopore-based metabarcoding sequencing data and produces nice, tidy and usable ecological data. This pipeline goes a significant way toward making metabarcoding more accessible and usable by less experienced researchers, and reducing volatility surrounding the constantly evolving bioinformatics steps surrounding nanopore sequencing. The workshop was met with great enthusiasm, and even some constructive input on how to refine the pipeline further!

Jordan discussing the context behind the workshop’s focal pipeline.

Presentations, posters and plenaries

The main two days of the symposium were filled with exceptional talks and posters! We had plenary talks from Michael Traugott, Vanessa Mata and Si Creer, which provided valuable perspectives on the past, present and future of molecular ecology. This stimulated a lot of energetic discussion throughout the conference and nicely contextualised all of the super cool research that everyone else presented!

Michael Traugott delivering his plenary, titled “25 years of analysing trophic interactions molecularly: key learnings and future prospects.”

Si Creer delivering his plenary, titled “What can environmental DNA tell us about biodiversity and ecological interactions across diverse biomes?”

Vanessa Mata delivering her plenary inside Durham Cathedral, titled “DNA metabarcoding of small vertebrate diets: promises, pitfalls and ways forward.”

We had a really broad range of talks across a really nice span of career stages, from master’s students to established professors. The talks were arranged in four sessions: “ecosystem services”, “innovation and optimisation”, “anthropogenic impacts” and “trophic and broader ecological networks”, which covered everything from charismatic marine vertebrates to cryptic soil mesofauna. FERG was nicely represented, with Will, Mia, Rosy and Jordan all giving talks across the symposium, but also exceptional talks from various friends and collaborators.

Will presenting his PhD project on integrating ecoacoustics and molecular methods for monitoring soil health, including his recently published perspective article.

Mia presenting her PhD project on the impact of artificial light on arthropod foraging and nutrition, and the experimental set-up she has designed.

Jordan talking about dietary RNA and its potential for resolving trophic interaction data.

Tom Howells talking about his metabarcoding data which identified species in areas affected and unaffected by wildfire in Killarney National Park, Ireland.

Rosy describing her PhD on predator-plant commensalisms and their impact on ecosystem services and functioning, including her community science project, Spider Spies.

Yuval Zaltz talking through her cave spider trophic interaction networks and how they relate to cave natural history.

We had poster sessions throughout the symposium which provided a great opportunity for people to mix and mingle, but also continue hearing from researchers doing really cool work related to molecular dietary analysis! From FERG, Dheeraj, Bethan and Ben all presented posters on their work, and it was great to see so much interest and excitement surrounding them!

One of the DIETS poster sessions in full swing!

Dheeraj with his poster about his MRes project in which he’s investigating overwinter and early season trophic interactions of arthropod predators in arable agricultural systems.

Bethan with her poster on the diet and trophic ecology of the sub-Antarctic icefish, *Gobinotothen gibberifrons*, using dietary metabarcoding and stable isotope analysis.

Ben presenting his poster about his work investigating the control of pea aphid by parasitoids and hyperparasitoids based on metabarcoding data he generated for his PhD.

Break-out sessions

Throughout the talks and excitement of the conference, we had six break-out sessions in which we focused in on different topics as smaller groups to understand the current challenges, best practices and advances for each. Across predator dietary analysis, omnivore dietary analysis, experimental controls and data filtering, merging methods, multimarker metabarcoding, and open research and reference data, we had some really insightful discussions with incredible contributions from all. These were often mentioned as conference highlights, with newcomers dramatically expanding their understanding of the practices involved in molecular dietary analysis, and more seasoned users finding opportunities to understand new perspectives and challenge their own practices. We’ll hopefully have more to share from these discussions in the near future!

Some of the reasons why break-out session attendees have used or will use multimarker metabarcoding.

Some of the ideas break-out session attendees had regarding best practices for merging datasets together across methods or data types.

Excursion to WWT Washington

To finish the conference on a high, we took to WWT Washington’s wetlands centre, where some incredible flora and fauna can be found near the banks of the River Wear. We started off with some pond dipping, which many attendees hadn’t tried before. Among the highlights netted from WWT’s pond were a water scorpion (which demonstrated its awareness of DIETS by showing off one of its own trophic interactions), a boatman and several caddisfly larvae. We then got to see the incredible diversity of bird life on site en route to a feeding of WWT’s resident Asian short-clawed otters!

A bit of free time to explore the site took a lot of people along the banks of the River Wear. There, we got to see a saline lagoon, a relatively rare habitat in the UK (around 360 of them in total) in which saline water is separated from the sea by freshwater, creating a unique habitat vital for the survival of many species. In the UK, 36 species are associated with lagoons, of which 25 are confined to them, making them a priority habitat.

Several of the DIETS excursion-goers having a go at pond dipping in WWT Washington’s ponds.

A water scorpion engaging in a trophic interaction to show off to the DIETS attendees.

Two Asian short-clawed otters inspecting the DIETS attendees whilst having a swim.

Vanessa Mata, Michael Traugott, Rebecca and Jordan at WWT Washington’s saline lagoon.

Final thoughts and next time

It was such a blast running the DIETS Symposium, and so great seeing and hearing how much others enjoyed it! We’re particularly pleased with what an open and friendly atmosphere everyone helped to foster, which allowed everyone from newcomers to established experts to contribute to conversations, break-out sessions and all other aspects of the conference. We’re particularly pleased to share that this won’t be the end for DIETS! We’re really excited to come back together in 2028 in the Czech Republic! See you there!