What’s new: Researchers have successfully detected the presence of koalas and other threatened wildlife species using new tools that allow easy collection of airborne environmental DNA, according to a recent study. What the study says: It’s often difficult, time-consuming and expensive to collect data and observe threatened wildlife like koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), small marsupials that live high up on eucalyptus trees in Australia. So researchers recently tested out a new strategy: capturing environmental DNA (eDNA), invisible traces of DNA that an animal sheds into the environment via fur or fluids as it moves through its habitat. To collect airborne eDNA, the researchers created simple air filters using layers of sterile cheesecloth. They then deployed 52 of these filters at four locations with long-term koala presence in Queensland state, Australia. In parallel, the researchers carried out regular surveys to detect the animals visually. The researchers detected the eDNA of 11 mammal species in the filtered air samples: from native wildlife like koalas, swamp wallabies (Wallabia bicolor) and ring-tailed possums (Pseudocheirus occidentalis), to invasive species like red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and black rats (Rattus rattus), to domesticated animals like pigs, horses and dogs. Seven of these species, including dogs, foxes, pigs, horses and cows, were not detected during the visual surveys. The researchers say in the paper that airborne eDNA not only helped them detect threatened species like the koala, but also helped them identify “potential biodiversity threats” and “problematic, invasive species.” For koalas in particular, dogs are known threats while rats,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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