Talk:Environmental DNA

Adding sources
Hello all-- Here are the following papers I'll be using as my key references. Comments? Advice?

Leahc 10 (talk) 04:21, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Biggs et al., Using eDNA to develop a national citizen science-based monitoring program for the great crested newt (Triturus cristatus), 2015, "Biological Conservation"
 * Bohmann et al., Environmental DNA for wildlife biology and biodiversity monitoring, 2014, "Trends in Ecology and Evolution"
 * Goldberg et al., Moving environmental DNA methods from concept to practice for monitoring aquatic macroorganisms, 2015, "Biological Conservation"
 * Thomsen and Willerslev, Environmental DNA-An emerging tool in conservation for monitoring past and present biodiversity, 2015, "Biological Conservation"

Suggested updates
Leahc 10 (talk) 19:22, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) Provide clearer definition of eDNA and what it does/does not include
 * 2) Brief history of discovery
 * 3) Include application to monitoring biodiversity, species distribution, population dynamics, etc. The focus of each of these can be further broken down into different macro- and micro-environments (surface soil, various types of sediment, bodies of water)
 * 4) Include summary of techniques for eDNA sample collection/sequencing/analysis and, of course, the challenges presented with these approaches
 * 5) Controversial perspectives of application of eDNA to differ disciplines of biology including but not limited to molecular biology, ecology, paleontology, conservation genetics, and geology.
 * 6) Needs additional support/citations. Possible bias from 2nd listed reference.

Advanced Genetics 3595 at UWO
I am going to be editing this article over the next 2 months for my Advanced Genetics class at Western University. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Asincl29 (talk) 16:26, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Changes to "Collection: Aquatic (water column)"
My proposed changes to this segment of the Wikipedia page reflect the changing nature of current environmental DNA research. The majority of eDNA work is being conducted with water collected from the water column, and the information available in the associated section of the Wikipedia page should reflect changes to this section of eDNA research and the more advanced methodology concerning that work.

See below for the proposed changes. In brackets are material already published on the page.

 The majority of recent environmental DNA studies focus on samples taken from the water column [1][2]. Recent studies have included tests with fishes, amphibians, aquatic mammals, and other organisms [2]. More data is needed to determine the ability of environmental DNA samples to estimate population sizes [3]. Currently, many studies use presence/absence data as the response variable from environmental DNA tests. A volume of water (averaging ~2 L per sample) is filtered through a filter paper by use of a hand pump or peristaltic pump, and samples are stored for later laboratory analysis [4][5]. Samples filtered from water samples can be stored by freezing the samples or desiccating them in ethanol [6].  [1] Jerde, C.L., Mahon, A.R., Chadderton, W.L. and Lodge, D.M., 2011. “Sight‐unseen” detection of rare aquatic species using environmental DNA. Conservation Letters, 4(2), pp.150-157. [2] Thomsen, P.F. and Willerslev, E., 2015. Environmental DNA–An emerging tool in conservation for monitoring past and present biodiversity. Biological Conservation, 183, pp.4-18. [3] Evans, N.T., Olds, B.P., Renshaw, M.A., Turner, C.R., Li, Y., Jerde, C.L., Mahon, A.R., Pfrender, M.E., Lamberti, G.A. and Lodge, D.M., 2016. Quantification of mesocosm fish and amphibian species diversity via environmental DNA metabarcoding. Molecular Ecology Resources, 16(1), pp.29-41. [4] Rees, H.C., Maddison, B.C., Middleditch, D.J., Patmore, J.R. and Gough, K.C., 2014. The detection of aquatic animal species using environmental DNA–a review of eDNA as a survey tool in ecology. Journal of Applied Ecology, 51(5), pp.1450-1459. [5] Pilliod, D.S., Goldberg, C.S., Arkle, R.S. and Waits, L.P., 2013. Estimating occupancy and abundance of stream amphibians using environmental DNA from filtered water samples. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 70(8), pp.1123-1130. [6] Renshaw, M.A., Olds, B.P., Jerde, C.L., McVeigh, M.M. and Lodge, D.M., 2015. The room temperature preservation of filtered environmental DNA samples and assimilation into a phenol–chloroform–isoamyl alcohol DNA extraction. Molecular ecology resources, 15(1), pp.168-176. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlexWiebe1 (talk • contribs) 13:48, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Addressing ref based GA review comments
I was fixing some ref errors in this article; at the same time also cleaned up a bunch of duplicated refs mostly from the lead and cleaned up the selfDNA section, which goes a little way to addressing some of the ref based comments in the GA review above. Amkilpatrick (talk) 14:26, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Privacy and ethical concerns
The article currently contains only the positive aspects of eDNA. Increasingly, aspects concerning privacy and ethical concerns have been raised.

I'm not an expert in the field but perhaps someone more knowledgeable might add a section (or two sections?) covering such issues. Following are a few sources that discuss such issues:

- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/science/environmental-dna-ethics-privacy.html

- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/analysis-we-shed-our-dna-everywhere-we-go-heres-why-that-raises-privacy-concerns

- https://phys.org/news/2023-05-dna-samples-sand-air-ethical.html

- https://www.science.org/content/article/privacy-concerns-sparked-human-dna-accidentally-collected-studies-other-species

- https://www.vice.com/en/article/88xq4v/human-dna-is-all-over-the-place-raising-privacy-concerns

- https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/ethics/edna-ethical-risks/

- https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001m4w7 31.51.14.148 (talk) 20:55, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

SedaDNA
This article is mainly about modern environmental DNA. I think the section on SedaDNA (sedimentary ancient DNA) is primarily of interest to people interested in Ancient DNA. I suggest moving the section to that article with a hatnote on this article. Dudley Miles (talk) 19:13, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

History?
Greetings, In addition to the topics suggested for change by the reviewer, how about information on the history of the technique? I am lost trying to find any here.


 * What is the origin of the concept of searching soils for DNA?
 * How was it achieved and how long did it take?
 * How did the genetics community accept the new technique?
 * How far back was DNA found? (I saw where it is 2,000,000 ya Is that true?)

I came here for the history of eDNA and was disappointed. Thank you for your time, Wordreader (talk) 16:03, 7 April 2024 (UTC)