(CN) — Two new studies indicate that analysis of air samples may be used as a noninvasive method to monitor an area’s biodiversity, something that will support global conservation efforts.
Two independent teams of researchers — one based in Denmark and the other in the United Kingdom and Canada — set out to collect several air samples from two European zoos: Hamerton Zoo Park in the U.K. and Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark.
Their findings, published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, showed the presence of a wide range of animal species both within and outside the two zoos.
Living organisms shed traces of their DNA into their surrounding environments as they interact with said environment. In recent years, environmental DNA has become an important tool for species detection in a wide range of habitats, researchers note.
DNA analysis of water samples is routinely used to map species in aquatic environments, for example. But it’s only now that airborne DNA has been explored for terrestrial animal monitoring.
In the U.K. study, researchers identified DNA from 25 species of animals, including tigers, lemurs and dingoes.
“We were even able to collect eDNA [environmental DNA] from animals that were hundreds of meters away from where we were testing without a significant drop in the concentration, and even from outside sealed buildings. The animals were inside, but their DNA was escaping,” Elizabeth Clare of York University in Canada, who was senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London during the study, said in a statement.
The Danish study analyzed 40 samples that revealed DNA from 49 species, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and even fish.
“We were astonished when we saw the results,” Kristine Bohmann, of the University of Copenhagen’s Globe Institute, said in a statement.
“In the Rainforest House we even detected the guppies in the pond, the two-toed sloth and the boa,” she added. “When sampling air in just one outdoor site, we detected many of the animals with access to an outdoor enclosure in that part of the zoo, for example kea, ostrich and rhino.”
In addition to zoo animals, both teams detected DNA of animals from surrounding areas. For example, the Eurasian hedgehog — a species that is endangered in the U.K. — was detected outside of Hamerton Zoo, and the water vole and red squirrel were detected around the Copenhagen Zoo.
“The non-invasive nature of this approach makes it particularly valuable for observing vulnerable or endangered species as well as those in hard-to-reach environments, such as caves and burrows. They do not have to be visible for us to know they are in the area if we can pick up traces of their DNA, literally out of thin air,” Clare said. “Air sampling could revolutionize terrestrial biomonitoring and provide new opportunities to track the composition of animal communities as well as detect invasion of non-native species.”
To ensure the DNA found in the air at the zoo wasn’t contaminated with the air in the lab, researchers also sampled and sequenced the air within the lab.
The two research teams had no knowledge of each other’s work until the studies were completed.
Both Clare and Bohmann said that having two studies independently demonstrate that airborne environmental DNA can be used to monitor a range of animal species greatly enhances the strength of the work.
“We did not think that vacuuming animal DNA from air would work,” Bohmann said. “This was high risk, high reward science with the potential to push the boundaries of vertebrate biomonitoring. Clearly, the sky is not the limit.”
Follow @@HughesRosana
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
