A whale in ten liters of water: the future of biodiversity research!

A whale in ten liters of water: the future of biodiversity research!

An exciting project for monitoring whales and its environment is in the starting blocks and offers Citizen Scientists the opportunity to actively participate. Together with various partners as part of the biodiversa+ project "Ewhale", the University of Innsbruck has developed new sampling methods for environmental DNA (EDNA), which show that even with only ten liters of water you can find out a lot about local biodiversity and whale population. As reported by the uibk.ac.at, water samples must be removed within ten minutes after a waling view in order to provide meaningful results. The samples should be collected directly from the flukenprint or where the whale jumped out of the water.

The special thing: The new sampling methods are not only easy to carry out, but also deliver good sample quality in no time at all. This could really turn the classic, often invasive and resource-intensive whale monitoring methods upside down. The results from various examination areas and Walarten are published in autumn, further laboratory analyzes are imminent.

Citizen Science for biodiversity

A crucial goal of the project is to involve civic science in these important environmental studies. In this way, all participants can effectively contribute to monitoring whales and to record biodiversity. Bettina Thaler and Lauren Rodriguez developed two specialist articles through the project, which describe the new methods and their successes in detail. These are published in the Journal Environmental DNA and could form the basis for international monitoring programs.

The researchers have decided to present their work together to avoid competition. Nevertheless, the two articles provide different approaches and results that refer to the whale and dolphinarten as well as their habitats. Another significant result of these studies shows that a amount of water of ten liters provides optimal results for DNA analysis and large-pore filters are more effective than small pores.

a global commitment

The project is not to be considered isolated, because environmental DNA is hit in hundreds of lakes worldwide. It is a new approach to create a more comprehensive picture of the global biodiversity state. The collected samples represent a record in their quantity - the largest amount of Edna, which was ever collected from an aquatic environment in one day. According to [Nature.com] (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00520-Y, the goal is to improve understanding of how types move and develop over time.