Camelia Bhattacharyya, Amity University Kolkata
Dutch photographer Frans Lanting famously said, “biodiversity starts in the distant past and it points towards the future”. So the biodiversity of a region is very important since it marks the productivity of that particular region. Environmental biologists have been working since long back to identify and mark the biodiversity of a region. The processes used by them might include the collection of skin, dung, and other samples from soil, water, and other geographical regions to filter out the DNA and sequence it to further match it with recorded and known sequences to mark the existence of an organism in an area. While this process seems to give better results to marine biologists as water can be filtered easily and DNA can persist in water for a longer period, it is quite difficult to isolate DNA samples from soil or other solid or semi-solid samples. Thus, environmental DNA (eDNA) sequencing becomes really tough. But what if one particular species can be used to point out towards the existence of other species? One species that is found in almost every region can be used and has been used in a recent study in UK.
The gut microbiome depends completely on the food we eat and thus changes itself accordingly. So, experiments on the gut samples might point towards the food habits of an organism. This process has successfully been used in eDNA identification. The dung beetle is known to live in every place of this planet, may it be forests or mountains or desserts and so on (except in Antarctica). These species feed on the dung of other animals. Thus their gut contains the DNA of those organisms whose dung has been digested by these species. This might point towards all other species residing in an area at the present time. Thus, identification of the regional biodiversity would be even easier. This process if used can make DNA sequencing easier since the sampling has been simplified.
This process can’t be used in every organism since all organisms don’t dwell in all climatic and geographical conditions and thus can be used only on those species like the dung beetle which share the existence with other species in most of the geographically different regions. Though this technique might give amazing results, yet the question of bioethics would come into play. A number of these creatures have to be sacrificed in the name of research and licked from different regions which might again endanger the species. These are not like normal mice models which are manipulated in the labs to act in the required way. Here we don’t manipulate the organisms or grow them in labs, but pick up the original ones for our study, thus questioning their future existence in that area. So, there are several things which are yet to be understood and considered before putting on an experiment as a technique to be used in the near future.
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Source: doi:http://10.1126/science.abh1717
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