Conservation in a cup of water: estimating biodiversity and population abundance from environmental DNA

Abstract

Three mantras often guide species and ecosystem management: (i) for preventing invasions by harmful species, ‘early detection and rapid response’; (ii) for conserving imperilled native species, ‘protection of biodiversity hotspots’; and (iii) for assessing biosecurity risk, ‘an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure.’ However, these and other management goals are elusive when traditional sampling tools (e.g. netting, traps, electrofishing, visual surveys) have poor detection limits, are too slow or are not feasible. One visionary solution is to use an organism’s DNA in the environment (eDNA), rather than the organism itself, as the target of detection. In this issue of Molecular Ecology , Thomsen et al. (2012) provide new evidence demonstrating the feasibility of this approach, showing that eDNA is an accurate indicator of the presence of an impressively diverse set of six aquatic or amphibious taxa including invertebrates, amphibians, a fish and a mammal in a wide range of freshwater habitats. They are also the first to demonstrate that the abundance of eDNA, as measured by qPCR, correlates positively with population abundance estimated with traditional tools. Finally, Thomsen et al. (2012) demonstrate that next‐generation sequencing of eDNA can quantify species richness. Overall, Thomsen et al. (2012) provide a revolutionary roadmap for using eDNA for detection of species, estimates of relative abundance and quantification of biodiversity.

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Cited by papers we hold 12

• Heterogeneity across Neotropical aquatic environments affects prokaryotic and eukaryotic biodiversity based on environmental DNA · 2022
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• A new high‐resolution melt curve eDNA assay to monitor the simultaneous presence of invasive brown trout (Salmo trutta) and endangered galaxiids · 2021
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• Environmental DNA (eDNA) Monitoring of Noble Crayfish Astacus astacus in Lentic Environments Offers Reliable Presence-Absence Surveillance – But Fails to Predict Population Density · 2020
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• Fine‐scale environmental heterogeneity shapes fluvial fish communities as revealed by eDNA metabarcoding · 2020
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• Annual time-series analysis of aqueous eDNA reveals ecologically relevant dynamics of lake ecosystem biodiversity · 2017
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• Methods to maximise recovery of environmental DNA from water samples · 2017
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• Controls on eDNA movement in streams: Transport, Retention, and Resuspension · 2017
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• The relationship between the distribution of common carp and their environmental DNA in a small lake. · 2014
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• The room temperature preservation of filtered environmental DNA samples and assimilation into a phenol–chloroform–isoamyl alcohol DNA extraction · 2014
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• Using Environmental DNA to Census Marine Fishes in a Large Mesocosm · 2014
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• Using Environmental DNA to Estimate the Distribution of an Invasive Fish Species in Ponds · 2013
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• Robust Detection of Rare Species Using Environmental DNA: The Importance of Primer Specificity · 2013
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