Biodiversity studies using environmental DNA in the Frøslev group
The Frøslev group utilize environmental DNA for studying biodiversity and community ecology, with applications in e.g. forensics, nature conservation and management, and diet analyses. The group has a special focus on the derivation of reliable biodiversity metrics, and the study of hyper-diverse organism groups.
In the Frøslev group, we work with genetic identification of organisms in highly complex biological samples through DNA sequence analyses, with a wide range of applications. Central focus points are: getting reliable biodiversity data from environmental DNA, detection of differences and changes in the detected biota.
For many applications we have a special focus on hyperdiverse organism groups, with thousands of species in a single gram om soil (fungi, protozoa, nematodes, bacteria), as these understudied groups often show much more reliable and predicable responses, than larger organisms.
Examples of previous and ongoing projects are: eDNA-metabarcoding to asses biodiversity gradients across the Danish landscape (Biowide); metabarcoding of forensic samples to estimate the origin or matching of samples from a crime scene (SoilTracker); Studying the impact on soil biodiversity by different agricultural practices (GMSR); optimizing practical biodiversity assessment with eDNA (DNAmark). Our laboratory and bioinformatic approaches incorporate innovative and state-of-the-art solutions to get deep and broad sampling – both ecologically and taxonomically – as well as avoiding analytical artefacts.
- Frøslev TG, Kjøller R, Bruun HH, Ejrnæs R, Hansen AJ, Læssøe T, Heilmann-Clausen J. 2019. Man against machine: Do fungal fruitbodies and eDNA give similar biodiversity assessments across broad environmental gradients? Biological Conservation
- Frøslev TG, Kjøller R, Bruun HH, Ejrnæs R, Brunbjerg AK, Pietroni C, Hansen AJ. 2017. Algorithm for post-clustering curation of DNA amplicon data yields reliable biodiversity estimates. Nature Communications
- Fløjgaard C, Frøslev TG, Brunbjerg AK, Bruun HH, Moeslund J, Hansen AJ, & Ejrnæs R. 2019. Predicting provenance of forensic soil samples: Linking soil to ecological habitats by metabarcoding and supervised classification. PloS one
Innovation Fund
Villum Fonden
Horizon 2020 EU
Aage V. Jensens Naturfond
| Name | Title | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Nicola Alexandra Vogel, | Master Student | ||
| Tonje Ekkeren Eim, | Master Student, | ||
| Carlotta Pietroni | PhD Student |