Ghost sharks in the Dominican Republic? Efforts to reduce phantom diversity of elasmobranchs in Samaná

Methods

Summary

The first phase of the project will be comprised of a structured interview in the KoboToolbox or Google Forms platform. The questionnaire will be designed by our team and will have a maximum duration of 20 minutes. 

For the collection of eDNA samples, we will be using an adapted methodology, based on the protocol of Ip et al., 2021. As described in the Goals section of our proposal, the water samplers will be deployed in four types of ecosystems in three different locations, and seasons of the year.

We will test the primers mentioned by Ip et al., 2021 and Bakker et al., 2017, using the protocols designed by the latter and standardizing with the primers that yield better results. 

For sequencing we will be sending the samples to an experienced lab to obtain the sequences for analyses. 

Challenges

The main challenge we will face will be with the processing and analysis of the collected samples. For that, we will seek support from local universities like INTEC, UNPHU and UASD. In case more scientific expertise is required, our team members have access to international researchers from Brazil (USP), Mexico (UNAM), and Peru (UPCH) who can be reached out to provide advice. 

Pre Analysis Plan

The interviews will be analyzed by descriptive statistics methods. For the eDNA results we will use software such as Geneious Prime, BLAST and PRIMER-e. In case it is needed, we will be able to ask for the support of ecologists to help us handle the data adequately.