Soil tests can reveal an area's faunal biodiversity
- Thread starter Zooplantman
- Start date
This is very cool. I think it will need to be extensively field tested in nature to see how well the results hold up. If it is a robust technique, then it is fascinating to think how it could be used to help reconstruct the paleoecology of areas. It could also be very useful for conducting wildlife censuses in combination with phototraps, aerial surveys, etc...may be especially useful for reclusive forest critters.
I would think that this technique might be useful for plants as well, although there are many challenges that plant genetics have that animals don't like multi-ploidy genomes and alkoloids that inhibit sequencing.
I would think that this technique might be useful for plants as well, although there are many challenges that plant genetics have that animals don't like multi-ploidy genomes and alkoloids that inhibit sequencing.
Zooplantman
Well-Known Member
And the plants don't get around in the same way as animals and so any given sample may miss alot
One of the things that I sometimes do for my day job as a biologist at an environmental consulting firm is help with rare plant surveys. It is really hard to find rare plants sometimes because they only germinate in a narrow window of climatic factors and don't show up every year. It would be really cool to be able to do a genetic scan of soil samples to see what it is in the seedbank.
We often fantasize about having a tricorder like in "Star Trek" where we could just scan a plant and find out what it is as plant taxonomy is very tricky (as I'm sure you have vast experience with). Genetic studies like this may move us closer to something like this...although probably not for a long time.
