I’m a marine biologist focused on rocky reef conservation, and I’m looking for a short, rigorous eDNA training that translates to field protocols for nearshore fish monitoring. Has anyone here completed a program you’d recommend — ideally something you finished in under 6 weeks and that covered contamination control, sample archiving, and basic bioinformatics (QIIME 2 or similar)? Bonus if it’s online so I can work around spring survey dives off La Jolla.
I had good luck pairing Smith-Root’s field eDNA training with the QIIME 2 virtual workshop (https://qiime2.org) for nearshore fish surveys. > under 6 weeks and that covered contamination control, sample archiving, and basic bioinformatics (QIIME 2 or similar)? Bonus — Agree on that; this combo fit in about 4 weeks, nailed contamination-control SOPs and chain-of-custody archiving, and the QIIME 2 piece took me from demux to feature tables. Small caveat: Smith-Root is a bit gear-centric (), so if you want more bioinformatics depth, spend an extra day running the Moving Pictures tutorial after the workshop.
On surge-y reef stations, switching to 0.45 μm PES Sterivex and snapping a photo of each pre-barcoded replicate beside the GPS screen kept clogging down and our archive trail unambiguous — “photo + barcode or it didn’t happen.” Small caveat: if you pre-filter, note mesh size in metadata and get the cartridges on ice and into the freezer within a couple hours.
I’ve found it helpful to keep the eDNA samples cool during transport to reduce degradation. It’s crucial to get them on ice right after collection; like you mentioned, be sure to note mesh size in your metadata. Have you thought about including any preliminary markers before your fieldwork?