Environmental DNA Recovery and Nanopore Sequencing from Spider Webs
Presenter(s)
Jace Onstad
Abstract
Environmental DNA (eDNA) provides a noninvasive tool for assessing biodiversity, yet spider webs—despite their ability to trap genetic material from both spiders and the surrounding environment—remain an underutilized eDNA source. We evaluated the feasibility of using eDNA collected from local spider webs to passively evaluate biodiversity. DNA was extracted from webs collected in a home basement and at the west dock of Lake Winona. A 130 bp fragment of the cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene was amplified using minibar primers and prepared for sequencing with Oxford Nanopore’s Ligation Sequencing Kit V14. Libraries were run on a Flongle flow cell, yielding more than 163,000 DNA reads from the basement sample and more than 67,000 DNA reads from the Lake Winona sample. Sequence processing followed a modified PIMENTA workflow optimized for Nanopore data. After quality filtering, 21 reads from the basement web and 50 from the Lake Winona web were BLASTed and taxonomically identified using GenBank. Our results highlight the potential of spider-web eDNA as a novel and practical tool for biodiversity monitoring.
College
College of Science & Engineering
Department
Biology
Campus
Winona
First Advisor/Mentor
Amy Runck
Location
Kryzsko Great River Ballroom, Winona, Minnesota; United States
Start Date
4-23-2026 2:00 PM
End Date
4-23-2026 3:00 PM
Presentation Type
Poster Session
Format of Presentation or Performance
In-Person
Session
2b=2pm-3pm
Poster Number
48
Environmental DNA Recovery and Nanopore Sequencing from Spider Webs
Kryzsko Great River Ballroom, Winona, Minnesota; United States
Environmental DNA (eDNA) provides a noninvasive tool for assessing biodiversity, yet spider webs—despite their ability to trap genetic material from both spiders and the surrounding environment—remain an underutilized eDNA source. We evaluated the feasibility of using eDNA collected from local spider webs to passively evaluate biodiversity. DNA was extracted from webs collected in a home basement and at the west dock of Lake Winona. A 130 bp fragment of the cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene was amplified using minibar primers and prepared for sequencing with Oxford Nanopore’s Ligation Sequencing Kit V14. Libraries were run on a Flongle flow cell, yielding more than 163,000 DNA reads from the basement sample and more than 67,000 DNA reads from the Lake Winona sample. Sequence processing followed a modified PIMENTA workflow optimized for Nanopore data. After quality filtering, 21 reads from the basement web and 50 from the Lake Winona web were BLASTed and taxonomically identified using GenBank. Our results highlight the potential of spider-web eDNA as a novel and practical tool for biodiversity monitoring.
Comments
Onstad, Jace