Thank you so much for all the support 🥰

So it is then when I was inspired to explore the world of molecular techniques.
Genetic tools such as DNA #metabarcoding, provide taxonomic resolution to the species level allowing for more efficient and comprehensive overview of species’ diet by detecting a wide range of prey species.

But the method brings in a lot of bias because most of the prey items in feces are mostly or partially digested, leaving only hard-to-digest parts such as beetle 🪲 legs, wing parts, or antennae, etc. So the soft-bodied insect prey remain undetected using this traditional method of diet analysis.

My interest in learning molecular methods sparked during my master’s thesis in Environmental Science in Nepal on bats supported by @batcon.org, when we teased apart bat feces with small pins under a microscope🔬to assess what they ate by trying to visually identify different insect parts.

Since it was my first time doing metabarcoding and I had no background in genetics or in any molecular methods, it took me sometime to wrap my head around even basic concepts of the method. I learnt and did things one step at a time. And finally, I made it ya’ll 🤩