Behind the paper: eDNA has great potential as a wildlife survey tool, but should be used properly

As many people know, two of my favourite topics are bandicoots and environmental DNA (eDNA). So I’m very excited about the online debut of my latest paper “A framework for developing and validating taxon-specific primers for specimen identification from environmental DNA” at Molecular Ecology Resources, which includes both bandicoots and eDNA. eDNA analysis is the analysis of DNA…

What We’re Reading- Aug 14, 2015

Conservation Prioritization on the Cheap There are many factors that may be considered when setting conservation priorities, one of which is phylogenetic distinctiveness (which we explain here). This paper (open) argues that incomplete phylogenetic trees may be used to identify phylogentically distinct species worth of conservation effort. This goes against the current thinking that perfect…

What we’re reading: Feb 20, 2015

New Research by SNPits Blogger Anna on Detecting Rare Species from Predator Scat! DNA testing to detect rare species from non-invasive samples (e.g. faeces) is becoming more and more common in wildlife management. If DNA results are used to inform management decisions, then it is important to understand the risks and consequences of false positive…