Technical & Biological Variation in eDNA Metabarcoding Processes

This project analyzes existing eDNA metabarcoding data to quantify variation arising from technical and biological processes. We use metabarcoding data from:

• Hood Canal eDNA data - Gallego 2020
• Eel Grass Halo data - Jacobs-Palmer 2020

Progress

1. Starting with ASV hash table scripts, converts data into a widely reusable format and filters out low read PCR replicates (data_qc.Rmd).
2. Finds Bray-Curtis dissimilarities among technical replicates find_PCR_BCDs() and biological replicates find_bottle_BCDs() in comm_var_braycurtis.Rmd.
3. IN PROGRESS: Quantifies ASV-level variation and the impact of rare species by fitting the proportions of each ASV across replicates to a negbin distribution and observing how variation changes with relative Hash rarity.

Additonal Datasets to Input into Community Level Functions

• Puget Sound Urbanization Gradient