Sampling DNA from air could help track animals, transform wildlife monitoring.
Bengaluru: Sampling the air around animals can yield valuable genetic material that can identify ecological interaction between different species, besides recognising the animals, biologists from Europe and Canada found in two separate studies.
Detecting DNA through such techniques aid in more accurate understanding of animal populations and dynamics, and consequently help in navigating conservation targets and methodologies.
The experiments were performed by filtering air at different locations in two zoos — in Copenhagen and in the UK.
The sampling detected DNA from a multitude of animals.
These species were not just animals from the zoo, but also those that lived around the premises as well as dead meat in the feed for zoo animals.
Such DNA is called environmental DNA or eDNA.
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