The next free SeDNAs webinar will be all about Women in Ocean Science. We have 2 great speakers, Dr Miwa Takahashi (CSIRO / IMOS) and Dr Lara Denis Roy (UTAS) who will be talking about their research. Miwa will talk about the newly launched IMOS eDNA facility, while Lara will be discussing her Australia-wide comparison with visual survey methods.
Date: November 21st, 2025
- New Zealand (NZST): 2:30 PM
- Australia – East (AEST): 12:30 PM
- Australia – West (AWST): 9:30 AM
Miwa Takahashi: Newly launched IMOS eDNA sub-facility
Since 2006, the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) has been collecting a wide range of physical and biological data from Australia’s oceans, creating freely and publicly available long-term datasets. Building on years of collaboration among many researchers, IMOS has recently launched a dedicated eDNA sub-facility. The sub-facility aims to leverage existing and future samples collected through the IMOS Marine Microbiome Initiative and Australian Plankton Survey to expand monitoring to macro-organism communities (e.g., fish, invertebrates). In this talk, she will introduce the IMOS sampling regimes and highlight the unique opportunity to establish large-scale, long-term eDNA collections across Australia’s marine environments.
Lara Denis Roy: Harnessing eDNA for reef monitoring: a continental scale comparison with visual surveys in Australia
The present study aims to compare the use of eDNA against visual surveys in studying reefs and to determine the value of its application to assess ecological change in reef ecosystems at the scale of the Australian continent. It analyses reef communities through two metabarcoding assays (16S Fish and COI Leray) as well as underwater visual surveys (UVS) following the Reef Life Survey method. Water sampling and UVS were done synchronously, and across six Australian states, both during the day and at night. The sensitivity of eDNA is measured against the ‘conventional’ UVS method for biomonitoring, in terms of taxonomic composition and species detectability at a local and continental scale, including for rare and threatened species.
Southern environmental DNA society 
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