Wednesday December 18, 2024
PhysOrg —
Dolly Varden is a rare species of fish found in the Nooksack River basin of northwestern Washington state. Although they have flyrods in tow, Trout Unlimited volunteers’ primary tool of choice is an environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling kit. This tool enables them to infer species’ presence from genetic traces in the water.
The volunteers collect each sample by running stream water through a filter. Then, they send the filter paper to a lab and receive a yes/no result for each species of interest.
For over a decade, the National Genomics Center for Wildlife and Fish Conservation has partnered with Trout Unlimited and others to pull off basin-wide eDNA surveys.
Today, though, the volunteers are particularly excited because they now have a new tool in their back pocket. The samples they are collecting won’t just be used to tell them about Dolly Varden—they will also be run on a new “biochip” that simultaneously looks for signals of 10 more species.