Harnessing the versatility of target capture in natural resource management

Target capture has revolutionised our ability to sequence hundreds to thousands of specific and informative DNA regions in a cost-effective manner. This technology has numerous applications in natural resource management ranging from the investigation of evolutionary relationships amongst organisms, assessments of genomic diversity to the identification of species.

A previous Environomics FSP project ‘Accelerating Discovery’ demonstrated that significant cost-efficiencies could be created by miniaturising target capture laboratory protocols. In this project we will extend and refine bioinformatic and molecular aspects of miniaturised target capture, with particular emphasis on the design of the platform to resolve shallow taxonomic levels (e.g., species, populations).

We anticipate numerous applications for this technology, including threatened species research and biosecurity.

Lead: Katharina Nargar