Approaches for biodiversity monitoring are expanding rapidly, with traditional field methods complemented with technologies such as camera traps and audio recorders. In addition, DNA metabarcoding can be used to monitor highly diverse, but often neglected, soil microbiomes—including fungi, bacteria, protists and invertebrates. The resulting datasets can vary widely in temporal and spatial scale and observation noise, creating challenges for integration and analysis.
As part of an Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme Advancing Restoration Knowledge project, we have developed guidance to help restoration practitioners navigate the options for analysing such complex biodiversity datasets. In this webinar, I will present the results from the two landscape restoration projects, and run through a series of tutorials to demonstrate the tools and decisions available to practitioners handling biodiversity data. This will include worked examples with code, and will provide the opportunity for attendees to interact and ask questions relevant to their landscapes.
Speaker:
Dr. Cristian Waggershauser is a wildlife ecologist with experience in large-scale ecological studies and monitoring through a combination of field molecular methods. He graduated from his PhD in 2022 at the University of Aberdeen having studied the diet and interactions of predators in the north-western region of the Cairngorms through DNA metabarcoding and camera traps.
Previously, Cristian was a research and field assistant at the James Hutton Institute where he studied the impacts of carcass provisioning on arthropod communities and carried out live-trapping of mountain hares in various remote sites. He holds an MSc in Ecology and Environmental Sustainability by the University of Aberdeen and a BSc in Biology by Universitat de Barcelona. Currently, his goals are to establish populations and biodiversity monitoring programs in terrestrial ecosystems through eDNA and camera traps.
