Technology and Environmental DNA to Solve Global Biodiversity Crisis

Written by Ethan Edson, Co-Founder & CEO, Ocean Diagnostics

Earlier this month, international governments gathered in Colombia for the Sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 16) to advance strategies and action plans aligned with the Global Biodiversity Framework.

While some progress was made, including an agreement for a global levy on products made using genetic data from nature and Indigenous communities being given a permanent role in biodiversity decision-making, the Summit ultimately ended with indecision and criticism. Delegates could not provide a strategy for securing the $200 billion annually needed to finance nature conservation, there was a lack of consensus on how to monitor biodiversity targets and progress, and countries including Canada were criticized for a lack of leadership and urgency needed to tackle the global biodiversity crisis.

Humans rely on biodiversity and healthy ecosystems for food, water, oxygen, economic stability, cultural significance, and overall well-being, but globally biodiversity faces an urgent threat due to habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, invasive species, exploitation of natural resources, and unsustainable agricultural practices. These threats can often interact and amplify one another, posing significant challenges for conserving biodiversity and maintaining the health and functionality of ecosystems. Adding to these issues, our ability to track and monitor biodiversity targets proposed through international agreements has been challenged by a lack of suitable methods and scalable monitoring solutions.

These issues are complex and daunting, but new technological advancements have enabled cost-effective and scalable solutions to monitor global biodiversity and track ongoing conservation targets. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is an emerging method that provides promising advancements for biodiversity and ecosystem monitoring. While other marine monitoring methods like visual surveys, net trawls and tissue sampling can be labour-intensive, time-consuming, and invasive, eDNA provides a non-destructive and more robust and reliable solution. With eDNA, it is now possible to collect a small, filtered water sample and obtain a comprehensive snapshot of an ecosystem's biodiversity by sequencing the DNA and RNA shed from organisms as they move through the environment.

Environmental DNA sampling technologies can help to alleviate the human effort required to collect biodiversity samples and provide opportunities for ongoing automation in monitoring programs, a key to scaling to the levels required to meet the proposed 2030 COP targets.

While existing environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling methods can present limitations, including time-consuming processes, risk of sample contamination, and inconsistent results, exciting new automated sampling instruments have been developed over the last several years to standardize and simplify field efforts. Instruments like Ocean Diagnostics’ Ascension eDNA depth sampler or portable surface samplers incorporate cutting-edge innovation to collect contamination-free samples throughout the marine environment. In addition, the development of an intuitive user interface and standard operating procedures for eDNA allows these devices to be used by anyone, from an undergraduate student researcher to a national park ranger, to easily collect eDNA samples on an ongoing basis anywhere in the coastal zone down to 400-meter depths.

Through ongoing pilot projects with our partners at the Minderoo Foundation in Australia, our collaborative research has shown that these instruments can be integrated into routine ongoing biodiversity monitoring of marine parks to give researchers a vast amount of information at speed and scale that has not been possible with other sampling methods in the past. The sampling can now be done from a small tender instead of a large research vessel, allowing Minderoo OceanOmics researchers and Parks Australia to collect eDNA samples and monitor areas that have been otherwise inaccessible or hard to routinely sample and monitor in the past.

As we face unprecedented challenges in biodiversity conservation, the exciting intersection of technological innovation and environmental monitoring offers a path forward. Environmental DNA sampling technology represents more than just a scientific advancement – it's a new tool in the toolbox and a scalable solution that can help bridge the gap between global biodiversity targets and meaningful data-based accountability and reporting.

By making biodiversity monitoring more accessible, efficient, automated, and reliable, we can better understand and protect our ecosystems. The success stories from our partners demonstrate that when we combine innovative technology from industry with committed conservation efforts, we can build a model for the comprehensive monitoring systems needed to meet our 2030 biodiversity targets and safeguard our planet's precious ecosystems for future generations.

By supporting the innovation and distribution of conservation technologies across its own and smaller developing nations’ marine ecosystems, Canada and other nations can help to achieve and maintain the COP targets and show much-needed leadership in international biodiversity conservation efforts.