Southern Ocean sedaDNA calibration (ICEPRO)
An email from PaleoEcoGen steering committee member, Linda Armbrecht (University of Tasmania, Australia), has been sent out requesting interest in "working together to “calibrate” Southern Ocean sedaDNA".
Email sent on Tuesday, March 12 2024:
"As part of an international team of collaborators working on the calibration of paleoproxies in the Southern Ocean, I’m wondering if any of you might be interested in working together to “calibrate” Southern Ocean sedaDNA. The term “calibrate” is very open and would mean that we decide together what exactly we’d like to focus on. For example, a priority could be to developing a comprehensive reference database of Southern Ocean species for specific genes, or a methodology (e.g. shipboard sampling techniques), or another aspect that might be relevant.
To discuss, it would be great to have an initial meeting with everyone who might be interested at the end of March, a follow-up meeting at the end of June, and, if possible a f2f meeting at the SCAR conference in Chile (August). Of course, I completely understand that everyone’s busy, and we’d aim to keep the time commitment as small as possible.
The broader team or researchers that I mentioned above is an Action Group of the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR) called ICEPRO - An International Collaboration Effort for Improving Paleoclimate Research in the Southern Ocean. ICEPRO is led by Dr Johan Etourneau (University of Bordeaux) and Dr Carlota Escutia (Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra - CSIC Granada). ICEPRO’s aim is to bring together international partners to coordinate and harmonize joint research activities in terms of sampling strategies, methodologies, proxy calibrations and the development of future Antarctic expeditions."
If you are interested, please contact Linda Armbrecht via email directly: linda.armbrecht@utas.edu.au
