The Innovation | 变废为宝：环境DNA将揭示人类对地球环境和生态系统的影响

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科学家们一致认为，我们现在生活在人类世时代，这个时代始于人类在地球生态和地质系统中留下的足迹。“Human and domesticated animal environmental DNA as an Anthropocene bioassay”的作者提供了一种新的方法来直接测量人类世的影响：从人类和被驯养的动物如鸡、猪和牛等的DNA序列与环境样本中其他野生脊椎动物环境DNA（eDNA）的比率测定人类对地球环境与生态系统的影响，而通常在eDNA元条形码研究中检测到的人类和被驯养动物序列被认为可能是污染，因此被排除在分析之外。该新方法可应用于测量从城市港口到偏远村庄等众多地点，并可能应用于历史样本的分析。因此，该方法可以利用这些所谓的污染信息，并且可以低成本的将基因组中的“错误”转化为有价值的“特征”。

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Turning waste into treasure: Environmental DNA will reveal humanity's impact on the planet's environment and ecosystems

Scientists agree that we are now living in the Anthropocene, an era that began with significant human influence on Earth's ecosystems and geology. The authors of 'Human and domesticated animal environmental DNA as an Anthropocene bioassay' provide a new direct way to measure the influence of Anthropocene: human impact on the Earth's environment and ecosystems is determined from the ratio of DNA sequences from humans and domesticated animals such as chickens, pigs, and cattle to other wild vertebrate environmental DNA (eDNA) in environmental samples, while human and domesticated animal sequences typically detected in eDNA metabarcoding studies are considered contaminated and excluded from analysis. The index can be applied to different locations, from urban ports to remote villages, and even may be used to analyze historical samples. This method could transform so-called contaminated information and can turn genomic 'errors' into valuable 'features' that can be obtained at low cost.

责任编辑：陈熹翰   南方科技大学

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原文链接：https://www./the-innovation/fulltext/S2666-6758(22)00152-7

本文内容来自Cell Press合作期刊The Innovation第四卷第一期以Out-of-the-Box发表的“Human and domesticated animal environmental DNA as bioassays of the Anthropocene” (投稿: 2022-06-21；接收: 2022-11-23；在线刊出: 2022-11-24)。

DOI: https:///10.1016/j.xinn.2022.100356

引用格式：Thaler D., Ausubel J., Stoeckle M. (2022). Human and domesticated animal environmental DNA as bioassays of the Anthropocene. The Innovation. 4(1),100356.

作者简介

Geneticist Mark Stoeckle is Senior Research Associate in the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University, New York, USA. Beginning in 2003, he helped build the movement for DNA barcoding of the tissues of animals, plants, and fungi.  Since 2014 he has been researching environmental DNA for monitoring marine animal populations, especially fishes.

Marine scientist Jesse Ausubel directs The Rockefeller University’s Program for the Human Environment (PHE), which aims to elaborate the technical vision of a large, prosperous society that emits little harm and spares large amounts of land and sea for nature.  He initiated and helped lead the Census of Marine Life, International Quiet Ocean Experiment, Deep Carbon Observatory and other large international cooperative programs to observe the environment.  In 2018 his group hosted the first US National Conference on Marine eDNA. 

Microbiologist David Thaler works at the Biozentrum, Basel, Switzerland and with the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University.  His interests include changes in the diversity, distribution, and abundance of microbes as well as larger forms of life.  He is also working on a project to make a scientific visualization of representative DNA sequences of all species of animals.