Pedro FP Brandao-Dias

Abstract Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding provides powerful insights into species presence and community composition, but remains limited in its ability to quantify species abundance or structure. Here, we show that deviation between observed haplotype frequencies within a given sample and the population haplotype frequencies can be used to infer the number of individual contributors to an eDNA sample.

Abstract Environmental nucleic acids (eNA), such as DNA and RNA, are powerful tools for monitoring biodiversity. Yet, interpreting eNA detections requires understanding of their environmental persistence. We conducted a decay experiment using seawater from an open dolphin enclosure to track degradation of six eNA components derived from Tursiops truncatus: mitochondrial eDNA of varying lengths, ribosomal eRNA, and messenger eRNA.