Overview
The vastness and complexity of British Columbia’s coastline makes it a challenging region for gathering data and tracking ecological trends. Collaboration and cooperation are essential to getting a more robust picture.
The Integrated Coastal Observatory (ICO) project responds to this need, bringing together a network of community science partners to collect monthly eDNA samples from nearshore habitats across the British Columbia coast.
ICO partners—citizen scientists, First Nations, NGOs, and government scientists —generate high-quality data that quantifies local biodiversity in their region. While at the same time, this coordinated approach provides a robust dataset for understanding broader coast-wide trends over time, allowing ICO to measure ecosystem health and track the impacts of climate change and other disturbances on marine biodiversity.
The current network includes over a dozen partner organizations who are sampling at more than 20 locations in coastal BC.
Tools Used
At its core, the ICO initiative is based around the eDNA metabarcoding procedure that is described in CoastConnect, where genetic tools are used to sequence all the fish DNA present in each sample.
• Partners deploy a standardized low-cost sampling kit developed specifically to facilitate eDNA sampling without any formal scientific training
• These sampling kits contain all the required equipment to collect, filter, and preserve eDNA samples for downstream analysis
• Samples are then shipped to the Hakai Institute Genomics Lab for genetic analysis
The resulting data are easily accessed and visualized through a custom-built web tool that was constructed with feedback from ICO partners.
