1 research outputs found
Environmental DNA (eDNA) for monitoring marine mammals: Challenges and opportunities
Monitoring marine mammal populations is essential to permit assessment of
population status as required by both national and international legislation.
Traditional monitoring methods often rely on visual and/or acoustic detections
from vessels and aircraft, but limitations including cost, errors in the detection
of some species and dependence on taxonomic expertise, as well as good
weather and visibility conditions often limit the temporal and spatial scale of
effective, long-term monitoring programs. In recent years, environmental DNA
(eDNA) has emerged as a revolutionary tool for cost-effective, sensitive, noninvasive
species monitoring in both terrestrial and aquatic realms. eDNA is a
rapidly developing field and a growing number of studies have successfully
implemented this approach for the detection and identification of marine
mammals. Here, we review 21 studies published between 2012 and 2021 that
employed eDNA for marine mammal monitoring including single species
detection, biodiversity assessment and genetic characterization. eDNA has
successfully been used to infer species presence (especially useful for rare,
elusive or threatened species) and to characterize the population genetic
structure, although additional research is needed to support the
interpretation of non-detections. Finally, we discuss the challenges and the
opportunities that eDNA could bring to marine mammal monitoring as a
complementary tool to support visual and acoustic methods