Meals & Accommodations at the Queen's University Biological Station - Opinicon Campus - for participants is included in the registration fee. We can provide transportation from Kingston. If participants are driving themselves (directions), parking is available. Before arriving we will refer you and provide to some video and PDF resources including a video introduction to eDNA that you should view before arriving.
| DAY | TIMES | ACTIVITY |
| Sunday May 12 | Late afternoon | Arrival at QUBS - meet at the Raleigh J. Robertson Biodiversity Centre |
| 5:30-6:30 PM | Dinner | |
| 7:00-8:00 PM | Welcome to QUBS - Introductions | |
| Monday May 13 | 7:30-8:30 AM | Breakfast |
| 9:00-10:15 AM | Presentation: The promise of environmental DNA for monitoring water, air and land. | |
| 10:15-10:30 AM | Break | |
| 10:30AM-noon | Presentation: Introduction to eDNA study design, qPCR, ddPCR | |
| 12:00-1:00 PM | Lunch | |
| 1:00-2:15 PM | Presentation: Overview of fieldwork, sampling, filtration, transport, storage, extraction | |
| 2:15-2:30 PM | Break | |
| 2:30-5:30 PM | Field practicum: Sampling water, sediment, and soil + metadata collection + water filtration | |
| 5:30-6:30 PM | Dinner | |
| 7:00-8:00 PM | Research Talk: TBA. | |
| Tuesday May 14 | 7:30-8:30 AM | Breakfast |
| 9:00-10:15AM | Practicum: DNA extraction of samples collected Monday - (QIAGEN Powerwater kit, QIAGEN Powersoil kit) part 1 | |
| 10:15-10:30AM | Break | |
| 10:30-12:00 | Practicum: DNA extraction of samples collected the day before - (QIAGEN Powerwater kit, QIAGEN Powersoil kit) part 2 | |
| 12:00-1:00PM | Lunch | |
| 1:00-3:15PM | Practicum: Bio-RAD qPCR demo: qPCR. While the qPCR runs, presentation on capabilities of qPCR and dPCR. | |
| 3:15-3:30PM | Break | |
| 3:30-5:30PM | Lecture: Bio-RAD. Interpretation of qPCR results. Second part of session. Primer design for qPCR (and for ddPCR). | |
| 5:30-6:30PM | Dinner | |
| 7:00-8:00 PM | Lecture: Data analysis and interpretation of qPCR results, with a case study. | |
| Wednesday May 15 | 7:30-8:00 AM | Breakfast |
| 8:00 - 9:40 | Lecture: Overview of metabarcoding and high throughput sequencing platforms. | |
| 9:40-9:45 AM | Break | |
| 9:45-noon | Lab practicum: Polymerase chain reaction: Prepare mix and run PCR | |
| noon-1PM | Lunch | |
| 1-3:30 PM | Lecture: Presentation: Library prep and DNA quantification | |
| 3:30-4:00 PM | Break | |
| 4:00-5:00 PM | Practicum: Loading & Running agarose gels. Estimating insert size. Qubit + Nanodrop. | |
| 5:30-6:30 PM | Dinner | |
| 7:00-8:00 PM | QUBS weekly seminar. | |
| Thursday May 16 | 7:30-8:30 AM | Breakfast |
| 8:30 - 9:30 AM | Lecture: General introduction to command line interface | |
| 9:30 -10:00 AM | Break | |
| 10:00 - 11:30 | Practicum: Practicum: Command line troubleshooting | |
| 11:30- 12:30 | Lecture: Bioinformatics data interpretation. Basic pipelines | |
| 12:30 -1:30 PM | Lunch | |
| 1:30-3:00 PM | Practicum: Bioinformatics analysis & interpretation of metabarcoding results. Part 1 | |
| 3:00-3:30 PM | Break | |
| 3:30-5:30 PM | Practicum: Bioinformatics analysis & interpretation of metabarcoding results. Part 2 | |
| 5:30-6:30 PM | Dinner | |
| 7:00-8:30 PM | Quiz | |
| Friday May 17 | 7:30-8:30 AM | Breakfast |
| 9:00 AM-noon | Quiz results and debrief. Depart |