Climate change is reshaping ecosystem function and structure, causing profound effects on reef fish biodiversity. In recent decades, fish species have been observed shifting their biogeographic ranges in response to climate change, especially tropical fishes extending their ranges into temperate ecosystems.

Traditional visual surveys that are used to monitor these range shifts often overlook small-bodied, rare and cryptic species, potentially underestimating the extent of biogeographic range shifts. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding bypasses some of these limitations and has the potential to reveal hidden species range shifts in response to climate change, yet this remains understudied.

In this seminar I’m discussing how the latest Illumina based sequencing technologies combined with eDNA metabarcoding can be applied to study fish movements under climate change.

Dr Timothy Ravasi, Professor, Marine Science & Principal Investigator, Marine Climate Change Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Dr. Ravasi is a Professor of Marine Science and the Principal Investigator of the Marine Climate Change Unit at OIST, an Adjunct Professor at the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at the James Cook University. His research interest lies on the status of coral reef ecosystems. He is particularly interested in looking at ecologically relevant issues in the light of rapid environmental change, such as climate change. Using genomics and integrative approaches, he seeks to identify mechanisms responsible for the acclimation and adaptation of coral reef fish to rising ocean temperatures and acidification.