eDNA
Developing standardized environmental DNA protocols and pipelines for marine biodiversity assessment across MBON nodes.
Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding offers a transformative approach to marine biodiversity monitoring — a water sample captures genetic traces of every organism that passed through, producing species inventories without nets, dredges, or destructive sampling.
The MBON eDNA working group coordinates protocol development, primer selection, bioinformatics pipelines, and data submission standards across regional nodes. The goal is interoperable eDNA datasets that feed directly into OBIS and align with the emerging Global eDNA Reference Library.
Genomics & eDNA
Environmental DNA extracted from water and sediment samples reveals the full community of organisms present — from bacteria to whales — with a speed and breadth impossible through visual surveys alone.
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MBON Data Portal
Search, download, visualize, and analyze real-time, delayed-mode, and historical MBON biological observations alongside physical and chemical data.
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MBON Pole to Pole Data Atlas
Harmonized rocky-shore and sandy-beach biodiversity observations from Canada to Patagonia, standardized for cross-regional comparison and open access via OBIS.
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eDNA Visualization
Interactive visualization of environmental DNA (eDNA) detections across taxa and sites.
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User Story: Bringing Steinbeck & Ricketts into the MBON Era
Over 85 years after Steinbeck and Ricketts documented life in the Sea of Cortez tidepools, a binational team retraces their expedition using MBON Pole-to-Pole protocols and eDNA to measure decades of biodiversity change.
Read storyUNH - Coastal New England MBON - Atlantic cod
This is the OBIS extraction of the Atlantic Cooperative Telemetry and University of New Hampshire (UNH) UNH - Coastal New England MBON - Atlantic cod, consisting of the release tagging metadata, i.e.
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