From 2022-2024, Minderoo Foundation used our eDNA sampling technology Ascension to help map biodiversity across Australian Marine Parks. We are excited to share that Parks Australia and Minderoo have now made the data accessible to the public on an interactive AI platform. The OceanOmics eDNA Dashboard provides one of the largest marine eDNA datasets ever assembled, and anyone can explore and visualize the ocean and its incredible species using this tool.
The interface includes ways to interact with the 1.2 billion DNA barcodes generated from over 6,000 water samples, some collected from 6000-meter depths. This work has revolutionized marine conservation and will be a strong asset to ongoing monitoring efforts.
“We gratefully acknowledge the team at Ocean Diagnostics for their collaboration, innovation, and steadfast support. Their instrumentation transformed the way we collect eDNA in the field, enabling efficient, high-quality sampling even in remote and logistically challenging environments. We’re especially thankful for their responsive technical support, which has been invaluable during fieldwork.” - Minderoo Foundation.
To help tackle biodiversity loss, scientists need to better understand what’s happening in the ocean. Like human DNA, environmental DNA (eDNA) holds genetic traces that reveal information about species living in an ecosystem, and it can create a dataset of species and organisms without having to catch or directly observe or disturb them.
The OceanOmics team brought in Ocean Diagnostics’ automated eDNA sampling instrument, Ascension, to help collect the eDNA as part of this program. The instrument was optimized and deployed from a small tender to collect hundreds of samples that were analyzed at Minderoo’s analytical sequencing lab in Perth, and now the public has access to this data thanks to the impactful charitable decision made by the Foundation.
Having a publicly accessible interactive tool instead of a published research paper enables other researchers, conservationists, marine park managers, local fisheries, indigenous communities and more to understand how biodiversity is changing across Australia, discover new biodiversity hotspots, inform ongoing environmental policies and monitor their effectiveness. This project illustrates the importance of cutting-edge technology in advancing marine conservation and long-term monitoring efforts.
We are proud to have collaborated on such an impactful project and look forward to continuing our work together to make accessible the scientific data needed to drive change.
Explore the data at marine-parks.minderoo.org.
1 min read
Aug 5, 2025
