Gathering genetic material from treetops in tropical rainforests would be a near-impossible task to perform safely by hand. That's why scientists have developed a system that allows a drone to do the ...

The ability to extract trace bits of DNA from soil, water, and even air is revolutionizing science. Are there pitfalls? By Peter Andrey Smith/Undark Published Feb 14, 2024 8:06 AM EST This article was ...

Environmental DNA left behind by ocean animals can be measured to inventory the marine life in a particular area. Measuring marine biodiversity with "environmental DNA" -- an application of gene ...

One of the best ways to know whether an animal is in an area is to see it with your own eyes. The next best thing? Environmental DNA. Great white shark sightings in the Mediterranean are very rare, ...

A thousand kilometers south of Tokyo, far into the largest ocean on Earth, lies a chain of small, volcanic islands -- the Ogasawara Islands. Nature has been able to develop on its own terms here, far ...

It used to be that if you wanted to find a DNA sequence in a particular sample, you had to go searching for that specific sequence—you had to fish it out with a hook designed especially to catch it.

Ecologists are increasingly using traces of genetic material left behind by living organisms left behind in the environment, called environmental DNA (eDNA), to catalogue and monitor biodiversity.

On a dreary winter day in December of 2020, ecologist Elizabeth Clare strolled through the Hamerton Zoo Park in England wielding a small vacuum pump. She paused outside of animal enclosures, holding ...

Marie Simonin is a research scientist at INRAE, the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment. Emily S. Bernhardt has received funding to research the impacts of ...