Genohydro: Assessment of predictions of hydrologic function based on aquatic DNA fragments

In watersheds where discharge observations are limited or non-existent, the collection of some other type of information-dense dataset during short field campaigns can be remarkably useful in understanding watershed function. This suggests that the collection of stream-water DNA presents an opportunity to rapidly gather a large, digitally encoded, dataset that contains information about hydrologic function at the multiple scales. This project is motivated by recent studies in microbiology that documented strong connections between the composition of aquatic microbiomes and the discharge of rivers where these microorganisms are found. By collecting, sequencing, and classifying the relative abundance of different members of aquatic microbiomes and then relating variations in microbiome community to discharge patterns, this project will develop a new hydrologic tool useful for quantitativeinference about watershed function.