Airborne eDNA captures three decades of ecosystem biodiversity

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Environmental Science
• Genomics

Background:

• Biodiversity loss poses a significant threat to ecosystem stability and human well-being.
• Traditional biodiversity monitoring methods are often resource-intensive and spatially limited.
• Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis, particularly from airborne samples, is emerging as a powerful tool for ecological surveillance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate the capability of airborne eDNA for comprehensive biodiversity assessment.
• To quantify temporal changes in species abundance and community composition.
• To investigate the impact of land use on regional biodiversity over extended periods.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 34 years of archived aerosol filters for airborne eDNA.
• Utilizing non-targeted sequencing to detect a wide range of organisms.
• Reconstructing weekly temporal relative abundance data for over 2700 genera.

Main Results:

• Airborne eDNA successfully detected organisms across the tree of life.
• Quantified changes in organismal abundance that correlated with traditional monitoring data.
• Revealed a land-use-induced regional decline in biodiversity in a boreal ecosystem over three decades.

Conclusions:

• Airborne eDNA provides a unified framework for ecosystem-scale biodiversity surveillance.
• This method enables multi-decadal, high-frequency monitoring of species and communities.
• Offers a cost-effective and comprehensive approach to understanding ecosystem dynamics and environmental change impacts.