Environmental genomics for benthic monitoring of North Sea oil and gas offshore platforms

During the last decade, considerable efforts have been undertaken to achieve a “good ecological status” of European coastal waters and ensuring development methodological standards for evaluation this status. However, current routine biomonitoring implicates time-consuming costly manual sorting morphological identification benthic macrofauna. In our study, we tested performance environmental DNA metabarcoding targeting microbial communities meiofauna as an alternative traditional macrofauna-based monitoring. We focused on impact assessment offshore oil gas industry. used three genetic markers (18S V1V2, 18S V9 COI) assess pressures induced by platforms. All showed patterns alpha beta diversity consistent with morphology-based macrofauna analyses, significantly changing along distance gradients from The operational discharges was also detected variation biotic indices values, AMBI index showing best correlation between eDNA datasets. Finally, sediment physicochemical parameters were build local de novo pressure that served benchmark test potential taxonomy-free approach. Our study demonstrates approach outperforms can be cost time-saving solution monitoring in order monitor more efficiently industrial activities marine biodiversity.