Fig 1.
Map of sample sites in Macquarie Harbour (MH).
This map shows the location of the two sampling sites used in this study to collect water at depth from Macquarie Harbour (MH), including Table Head (A) and Liberty Point (B). The inset map shows the location of MH on west coast of Tasmania.
Fig 2.
Example of species-specific primer and probe design, using mitochondrial sequence (NADH4 region) aligned between two species.
The mitochondrial reference sequence for the Maugean skate (Z. maugeana) is aligned with the same mitochondrial region occurring in the Thornback skate (D. lemprieri), with the penultimate bases (underlined) indicating the differences in bp between the two skate sequences. These differences were used to design the selected forward (qF1) and reverse (qR1) primers and a matching probe (qP1) that is specific to Z. maugeana (product size = 331 bp).
Table 1.
Average eDNA concentration (copies per μl) extracted from water samples collected in MH.
Sample sites Table Head (site A) and Liberty Point (site B) along with sample replicates, filter volumes (L), mean eDNA concentrations (copies per μl) of multiple qPCR runs of a single sample volume and the standard error (Std error) of that mean. Additionally, both mean and standard error have been standardized to samples of 250ml.
Fig 3.
Exponential decay rate of Z. maugeana eDNA concentrations (copies per μl) over time.
For both DO treatments, including 55% saturation DO (---) and 20% saturation DO (—), Z. maugeana eDNA was still detected after 3 days using the assay and primer and probe pairs designed in this study.