D (Daniël) van Berkel MSc

I study the development of macrobenthos species in a Dutch offshore wind farm, using metabarcoding and native sequencing to gain insight in species composition, biodiversity and genetic diversity.

I am a marine biologist, with a special interest in molecular genetics. I am interested in molecular tools, and how they can be used to understand the ecology of marine animals in changing environments. Species absence, presence and abundance are important indicators for the state and health of marine environments. My goal is to obtain these crucial indicators from the DNA that is shed by the animals in the water column, rather than through visual observations, which can be costly and labour intensive. This environmental DNA (eDNA) is present in all marine environments and can give us detailed insight in species composition and biodiversity. By amplification of eDNA through metabarcoding and subsequent sequencing using MinION sequencers, we are able to report the relative abundance of marine species in various environments. However, metabarcoding is not able to give insight in population genetics of multiple species or methylation patterns of certain animals. Native sequencing, which is the sequencing of all DNA present in the water sample, does have the potential to yield these insight, on top of the species composition and biodiversity. To understand the potential of native sequencing, I analyse water samples from CrossWind, a Dutch offshore wind farm. CrossWind was build in 2023, and through it's own nature inclusive design, offers a unique developing marine environment. The scour protection, present around each windmill in CrossWind, creates a reef environment, which offers an attractive nursery area for various macrobenthic species. I aim to gain insight in temporal and spatial development of CrossWind's species composition, biodiversity and genetic diversity of the most abundant species by native sequencing of water samples from the scour protection.