It gathered practitioners, stakeholders, professors, university students and environmental authorities from 20 institutions across the Latin America and Caribbean region and had the contribution of excellent instructors from leading institutions in different aspects of biomolecular research. Firstly, the workshop included lectures about fundamentals of DNA-based monitoring. Later we had discussion panels about the gaps, needs, challenges and priority actions to implement marine biomolecular monitoring in the different countries and institutions and the importance of scientific outreach to influence both scientists and stakeholders into a better understanding of the need of robust and modern technologies such as eDNA into environmental decisions.
The workshop also included experimental design, field campaigns design and a field trip to majestic Santa Marta’s coastline to capture aquatic and sedimentary eDNA samples to process and analyze in laboratory. Attendees had first-hand experience in DNA extraction, amplification and eDNA sample manipulation. Sequencing and bioinformatics basics were delivered through several talks, roundtables and discussion panels to explore better, most efficient, low cost technology that could be adopted in Latin America and the Caribbean for robust, comparable, FAIR, and affordable biomolecular research. Results of the field trip will be published in a scientific journal and will include comparisons on water volume methods and marine eukaryotic diversity of Santa Marta.
