With eDNA, or environmental DNA, scientists can count fish and other animals just by collecting a small sample of water.
Take a cup of water from any
river, lake, or oceanside beach and environmental DNA fingerprinting can
reveal which species of fish were recently swimming there. It used to
take a lab a month or more to get those results, but now a new tool can
identify a specific species in three days or less. That could be a
gamechanger for science.
“If you took a water sample from New York Harbor on Tuesday morning, by the end of day Thursday you’ll know whether winter flounder are back,” said Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University in New York City.
New York Harbor restricts dredging if winter flounder are present.
Not only is the “Go Fish eDNA” (environmental DNA) tool fast, it costs just $15 per sample for one species, and $8 for additional species. In a few years time an early morning water sample from a beach could tell lifeguards by midmorning if tiger or white sharks were around, Ausubel said. “It’d be a kind of DNA dipstick.”...
Ken Notes: This is amazing tech. Should help with invasives.
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- - Volume: 6 - WEEK: 49 Date: 12/3/2018 8:05:15 AM -