DNA-based approach for pelagic biota monitoring around an oil field in the North Sea

This study is an attempt of eDNA-based impact assessment from the oil and gas industry for the marine life. We present a field, eDNA-based study at Ekofisk, an oil production ring in the North Sea for the water samples collected along a gradient of produced water (PW). The rationale behind this study was that today's monitoring and evaluation of impacts at the community level is challenging with the current methodologies, which do not allow to assess effect at the community structural level. Meanwhile eDNA analysis allows for the evaluation of functional and taxonomical diversity all genetic material present in an environmental sample. An evaluation of broad species community and composition for impact from pollutants has been performed and use to reveal sensitivity and resilience to discharges, with important indication for the function of the ecosystem. The main objective of this study was to analyze DNA samples for functional diversity and prokaryotes and eukaryote community composition to investigate the impact from PW discharge. Two types of methodologies were applied i.e., metabarcoding and PCR- free methodology namely metagenomics. The goal of our study was also concluding whether rigorous tests on the detection of specific and indicative groups of taxa using eDNA using targeted PCR based methods can be replaced by assessing the broad potential of eDNA for auditing marine biodiversity in the current knowledge status.