A fresh look at winter footprints: Environmental DNA improves tracking of rare carnivores
Tuesday, November 27, 2018 - 11:50
in Biology & Nature
A new project shows that animal footprints contain enough DNA for species identification. The study extracted DNA from snow samples collected within animal tracks and applied newly developed molecular genetic assays. The assays positively detected the DNA of each species, outperforming traditional lab techniques on previously undetectable genetic samples. This method could revolutionize winter surveys of rare species by greatly reducing or eliminating misidentifications and missed detections.