If you want to know which animals are in a particular place, a good way to find out is to look for their lost DNA. A new drone is designed to help scientists do so by clinging to tree branches autonomously.
Throughout life, animals disperse DNA into the environment through faeces, shed skin, and other genetic material. Thus, by looking at what types of this “environmental DNA” (eDNA) are present in water, soil, or air samples, scientists can determine which species are present in that area.
We have recently seen eDNA analysis being used to check for great white sharks near beaches, record prehistoric frozen ecosystems, and look for the Loch Ness Monster, among many other applications. I made it
Of course, airborne genetic material doesn’t stay in the air indefinitely. After a while, it settles on surfaces such as branches. However, collecting eDNA from high canopy branches can be very difficult and time-consuming (not to mention dangerous) by hand. That’s where drones come in.
Known as the eDrone, the system is being developed by scientists at the ETH Zurich Institute in Switzerland. Swiss Federal Institute for Forests, Snow and Landscape WSL. and French eDNA technology company Spygen.
The quadcopter starts by autonomously navigating to a target branch using depth-sensing cameras and other sensors. The aircraft then lands on that branch and pushes the lower cage into the leaf (or needle). In doing so, the genetic material present on the branches sticks to the adhesive strips of the cage.
force sensor of That cage is used to assess how much each branch “gives”, allowing the drone to land stably by not applying too much or too little pressure. Once the sampling process is complete, the eDrone will automatically return to the ground and the eDNA collected by the scientist will be available for retrieval.
In tests conducted so far, the aircraft has been used on seven tree species, from which eDNA of 21 different groups of organisms has been collected. He is ready to use in an international competition that teams are given 24 hours to detect as many species as possible across 100 acres (40 hectares) of Singapore’s rainforest.
You can see the eDrone in action in the video below. A paper on this research, led by Professor Stefano Mintchev of ETH Zurich/WSL, was recently published in a journal. science robotics.
Special drone collects environmental DNA from trees
Source: ETH Zurich
