Environmental DNA (eDNA)

With increasing applications of molecular profiling techniques in environmental projects, we collaborate with the Statistical Ecology research group where our interests overlap to share with each other developments in theory and methodology.

Environmental DNA represents a resource for estimating the biodiversity of a system, the size of a population (or indeed whether a species is still present), or the biomass of species, in a manner that is non-invasive and cost-effective. While attractively convenient, such measurements are indirect and prone to biases that require expertise in both ecological statistics and the statistics of molecular profiling to address.