TropWATER’s Dr Cecilia Villacorta-Rath has been awarded a Queensland Smithsonian Fellowship to train in environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques to assess habitat health on the Great Barrier Reef.
Dr Villacorta-Rath will spend 10 weeks at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Symbiosis & Resilience Lab in Panama, gaining hands-on training in molecular analysis and data interpretation with the lab team. The Symbiosis & Resilience Lab are leaders in DNA metabarcoding and marine microbiome research, making them the ideal host for her Fellowship.
Metabarcoding involves extracting and sequencing DNA to identify a range of species within a single sample. Dr Villacorta-Rath will gain skills with this technique, focused on microbiomes by identifying microbial eDNA associated with coral reefs and other marine organisms. By assessing the composition and diversity of a microbial community, she will be able to investigate environmental health including responses to pollutants and other types of stress.
Rather than focusing on a specific project, Dr Villacorta-Rath says the Fellowship will provide a chance to build key skills in advanced eDNA techniques applied to marine environments – skills that will then boost the capabilities of the TropWATER eDNA laboratory.
“This will create a new avenue of research for our lab,” Dr Villacorta-Rath said, “allowing us to expand our projects to include both freshwater and marine applications of eDNA techniques.”
Dr Villacorta-Rath is the first female researcher from TropWATER to be awarded the Fellowship, and the first to undertake the Fellowship at a laboratory in the tropics – and forging connections across the tropics is a key aspect of Dr Villacorta-Rath’s work.
“This Fellowship will establish valuable new links between TropWATER and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute that will open up opportunities for collaborative projects in the future,” Dr Villacorta-Rath said.
