Using DNA metabarcoding to detect burrowing seabirds in a remote landscape, Macquarie Island 2017-2018.

Scat and discarded feather samples were collected from outside burrowing petrel burrows across Macquarie Island (222 scat and 108 feather samples) between November 2017 and November 2018. Samples were collected within seabird colonies during ground searches and GPS co-ordinates were taken for each sample collected. DNA was extracted from all samples and two short mitochondrial markers (COI and 16S) were amplified using custom-designed burrowing petrel primers. Amplicons were pooled and sequenced on an Ilumina Miseq and compared to reference databases to provide species-level identifications. To assign species, maximum likelihood trees were constructed using MEGA X with representative species sequences from field samples and reference sequences from the Barcode of Life Database.