DNA Days and Dogfish Dave

Testing our DNA collection methodologies, March 2024, by Georgie Banfield

One of the most important elements of our project is to check all our data collection methodologies are efficient and effective. As you may have read in our other blogs, we are collecting the DNA from Smoothhounds and Skates so we can identify them using their genetic profiles. However DNA collection is notoriously messy – particularly when you are dealing with fishing boats that are not only covered in bait, hands and dirty shoes etc, but also moving about considerably too!

Sources of contamination can include surfaces, hands and feet, other fish, bait etc

We’ve been testing some of our data collection methodologies in order to fully prepare ourselves for when the competitive fishing season opens later in the year. Today was the day to test out our DNA swabbing techniques, which include trying different methods to reduce contamination from other sources

It’s too early in the season for most of our target species, so even though dogfish aren’t on our list, they’re a great little shark currently abundant in the Solent to test our methodologies on.

So on a rare sunny day in March we took the opportunity to get out onto the water and try our hand at fishing for dogfish…

Ross from Angling Spirit and Dogfish Dave (hailed as “The best dogfish fisherman in the South”!) managed to haul in quite a few beautiful specimens for us. We took a number of swabs from the surface of their skin using slightly different techniques and will send these off for analysis. We look forward to seeing the results in a few weeks!