Biomonitoring 2.0: The genomics-ecoinformatics nexus

Biomonitoring science is established in most developed countries as an effective approach to assess human impacts on the environment through the use of index- or model-based criteria to detect significant change in ecosystem structure.  The current state of the science in biomonitoring permits detection of subtle signals of impact against a noisy background of environmental variation, yet in multiple stressor situations, diagnosis of cause and related stressor ranking remain elusive.  Two emerging and rapidly linking areas in biomonitoring science offer a solution to this impasse: trait-based approaches and DNA barcoding.  By linking morphological, physiological and ecological character variation mechanistically to stress tolerance, trait-based approaches show great promise, yet the level of taxonomic resolution required  to fully develop this approach (genus / species) is currently unachievable at sufficient capacity by traditional taxonomic methods.  However, the advent of high throughput genomics technologies combining DNA barcoding with massively parallelised pyrosequencing can solve this problem through the generation of cheap, rapid, high specimen volume, high resolution taxonomic identification [see also Hajibabaei et al. - this session]. Combining these two emerging areas will allow biomonitoring science to yield its next generation of tools: affordable diagnostics coupled with an unparalleled immediacy of assessment outcome.