New DNA Method Could Revolutionise Wildlife Monitoring

The world is losing animals at an alarming rate, and tracking wildlife is instrumental to conservation efforts. Existing tracking methods are expensive, labour-intensive, and time-consuming. Recent research has shown that vertebrates leave their DNA in the environment, both as airborne particles and on vegetation. This offers a useful new way to monitor species, writes Patrick Omeja for The Conversation Africa.

An international research team tested whether environmental DNA methods could be used to monitor species in the rainforest of Uganda's Kibale National Park. They reasoned that if animal DNA was in the air, perhaps it settled and got stuck to leaves. The team swabbed leaves with cotton buds and sequenced a short piece of DNA, called a barcode. Barcodes are distinct for each animal, so the barcode found in the swabs could be compared to a barcode library containing all animals sampled to date.

The team was surprised to find that they could detect over 50 species of mammals and birds, including endangered species, with just 24 cotton buds. They detected nearly eight animal species on each of the cotton buds. The high diversity of animals, coupled with the impressive animal detection rate per swab, suggests that this method could be used to track animal diversity in the park, particularly in areas that are rapidly changing.