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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Jordan CuffORCiD, Ben HawthorneORCiD, Dr Catriona AndersonORCiD, Professor Angharad MR GatehouseORCiD, Professor David Thwaites, Dr Martin EdwardsORCiD, Professor Darren Evans
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Just over two decades ago, DNA-based dietary analysis promised to advance the resolution, sensitivity and speed with which we could detect and identify trophic interactions. Since then, these approaches have generated a paradigm shift in our understanding across a wide range of natural systems. Although decreasing sequencing costs and increased accessibility to sequencing technologies have significantly broadened adoption in recent years, advances in the methods used for dietary analysis have arguably slowed. We stand now, however, at the brink of the next advance, as traditionally DNA-based ecological studies increasingly apply RNA-based methods. To date, this has most commonly taken place in the context of environmental monitoring, and the application to dietary analysis is still underrepresented despite immense potential and relatively straightforward implementation. Given the reduced stability of some RNA types, the detection of consumed resources via RNA can mitigate many longstanding methodological pitfalls of DNA-based dietary analyses, by (i) differentiating between living and dead resources, (ii) identifying potential false positives, and (iii) providing temporal context to detections, facilitating the construction of weighted or multilayer trophic networks. Detection of functional RNA may also present an opportunity to ascribe functional contexts to both consumers and resources, and contextualise interactions or their impact on wider trophic networks. With the increasing accessibility of RNA-based methods, their application to community and network ecology may significantly advance our ability to analyse and understand trophic interactions in complex natural systems. Here, we summarise RNA-based dietary analysis methods with reference to recent literature in trophic ecology and identify areas that would benefit from additional research. By summarising the immediately identifiable advances and constraints that dietary RNA presents, we hope to stimulate widespread adoption of these approaches and advance integration of RNA-based analyses into trophic ecological research.
Author(s): Cuff JP, Kitson JJN, Windsor FM, Sint D, Hawthorne BSJ, Traugott M, Anderson CMH, Neidel V, Gatehouse AMR, Thwaites DT, Edwards MG, Evans DM
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Molecular Ecology Resources
Year: 2026
Volume: 26
Issue: 4
Print publication date: 01/05/2026
Online publication date: 22/05/2026
Acceptance date: 28/03/2026
Date deposited: 28/03/2026
ISSN (print): 1755-098X
ISSN (electronic): 1755-0998
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.70139
DOI: 10.1111/1755-0998.70139
Data Access Statement: Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
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