Biomonitoring of North Sea vertebrates using accurate nanopore-based long-read genetics and genomics

The North Sea ecosystem is degraded. To improve ecological quality, accurate and intensive monitoring of the North Sea ecosystem is vital, as this will inform management decisions. DNA-based techniques can be a powerful tool to aid biomonitoring practices and are currently in rapid development. We discuss technological developments, including the possibility to obtain accurate long-read sequences using fish eDNA metabarcoding with a new molecular marker targeting a 2 Kb region covering the 12s and 16s genes. Whole mitochondrial genome sequencing will be the next step to further increase identification accuracy and resolution.