every living thing A badger roaming the grass, an oak tree growing in the forest, an eagle flying overhead, and other invisible traces spread across the landscape. Fur, feathers, skin cells, spores, pollen, all packed with genetic information that floats in the data-rich atmospheric soup. Scientists call this information environmental DNA (eDNA). This information is so powerful that in January 2022, researchers announced that he was able to identify species at two zoos simply by sampling his eDNA in the air around him.
James Allerton, an air quality scientist at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory, read about the experiments and conducted one. wait a minute idea. The Institute operates a number of air quality monitoring networks, including the UK’s Heavy Metals Network. At these monitoring stations, air is passed through filters, which are analyzed to determine levels of toxic metals. “We weren’t sitting at the NPL thinking, Are there any recoverable DNA material on these filters?’” Allerton recalls. But the idea was too interesting to ignore. “When you read the reports about people successfully capturing animal DNA out of the air, and we’re working on particle measurements, you have a light bulb moment. .”
In particular, Allerton and fellow NPL air quality scientist Andrew Brown wondered if the lab’s equipment had inadvertently accumulated large amounts of eDNA that track the region’s biodiversity. I thought. “Some of the British stations were established in the 1960s and his 1970s,” Brown says of the stations. “So they’ve been taking samples in exactly the same way every day, every week, every month, every month for a very, very long time.”
They enlisted the help of biologists who had worked on the zoo, Joan Littlefair of Queen Mary University in London and Elizabeth Clare of York University in Toronto.in today’s diary biology today, they are announcing a breakthrough discovery: between an air quality monitoring station in Scotland and another in London, they were able to detect over 180 species of microbes via eDNA. This includes herds of animals such as deer, hedgehogs, badgers and newts. Plants including trees, grasses, wheat and other crops. There are 34 species of birds, including songbirds, pigeons and little owls.
Their work suggests that atmospheric scientists around the world are haphazardly collecting genetic data that could give biologists unprecedented insight into ecosystem change. This makes for a huge and incredibly valuable cache of information. “Even weekly samples taken at thousands of sites will give us more data on biodiversity than we have ever seen before,” says Clare. “In biodiversity science, we think: a year The survey will be high resolution data. So, I don’t think we’ve ever considered the idea that these weekly surveys are essentially automated. ”
In fact, air quality scientists didn’t even consider it, says Claire. “We’ve had a lot of conversations like this over the last few weeks with scientists and people who run networks,” Claire says. “When we say, ‘Did you know this was going to happen, too?’ they all have a momentary look of shock. And they say, ‘Oh, but ,that is” course Must be. ‘ It’s a matter of course, but it’s not Of course, because the people operating it are not biologists. ”
Craig Leisher, the conservation group’s director of monitoring and assessment, said airborne eDNA could be a powerful tool for species conservation, but he wasn’t involved in the new study. do not have. For example, if the DNA of an invasive species starts drifting into a protected area, atmospheric instruments could alert conservationists to the threat. Such monitoring devices would be especially useful on islands that are highly vulnerable to invasive species such as rats. If the device could smell rodent DNA, conservationists could take immediate action.
