‘All sorts of bacteria’: DNA profiling Katikati’s streams

Dr Peter Maddison holds a chart detailing exactly what is in the Uretara stream.

Curious about what lurks in our local streams?

You can find out exactly what’s floating in 10 Western Bay streams thanks to new technology applied locally which is now on display at Western Bay Museum.

Project Parore has been working with Wilderlab, an environmental DNA testing lab based in Wellington.

The local streams investigated were Honey Stream, McKinney Stream, Uretara Stream, Te Rereatukahia Stream, Tehawai Stream, Te Mania Stream, Tuapiro Stream, Waiau Stream, Waione Stream and Waitokohe Stream.

About 1000 species were identified. The technology illustrates and breaks down every plant, animal and organism that calls our streams home.

“You can see exactly what’s there,” says Dr Peter Maddison. “It gives us a big picture of our streams, it’s amazing. We can find out what fish are in there, what mammals are surrounding, then there’s a whole lot of worms and plant life and a huge amount of bacteria that we know nothing about.”

Some of the main groups of things found collectively were: 258 bacteria species, 59 fungi species, 97 algae species, 98 insect species, 53 worm species, 66 higher plant species and 61 rotoza species, to mention just a few.

“We found certain things we didn’t know were there, but we had suspected. We found that there were trout in the Waiau - we didn’t know that. The shortjaw kōkopu was found in the Uretara. Another that we didn’t know about was freshwater jellyfish, which I have heard about, in nearly all the streams.

“There’s some amazing things, such as the number of bacteria, and that includes all sorts of bacteria. There’s all the bacteria here that cause all sorts of human diseases... it’s nothing to worry about, it is what we would expect.”

The testing confirms what they have found from the river samples they have been conducting, Peter says.

The environmental DNA display will be at the Western Bay Museum for the next three months.