ArticleBMC ecology and evolution2021
Airborne environmental DNA metabarcoding detects more diversity, with less sampling effort, than a traditional plant community survey.
Article in BMC ecology and evolution, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Breath of Fresh Air: A Novel Passive Airborne eDNA Approach for Scalable Terrestrial Biodiversity Monitoring.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Properties and Limitations of eDNA Substrates for Terrestrial Animal Monitoring.Molecular ecology resources · 2026Review
- Contribution of DNA Metabarcoding to the Environmental Fungal Assessments in Hospitals.Microbial ecology · 2025Article
- Airborne eDNA Reveals Resource-Based Assembly of Frugivorous Vertebrates.Molecular ecology resources · 2025Article
- Spider Webs, Soil or Leaf Swabs to Detect Environmental DNA From Terrestrial Vertebrates: What Is the Best Substrate?Molecular ecology resources · 2025Article
- Elusive tropical forest canopy diversity revealed through environmental DNA contained in rainwater.Science advances · 2025Article
- Shotgun sequencing of airborne eDNA achieves rapid assessment of whole biomes, population genetics and genomic variation.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Robot-Aided Measurement of Insect Diversity on Vegetation Using Environmental DNA.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Laboratory and In-Field Metagenomics for Environmental Monitoring.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2025Article
- Evaluation of two environmental DNA (eDNA) approaches for monitoring hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA).microPublication biology · 2025Article
- Maximizing efficiency in sedimentary ancient DNA analysis: a novel extract pooling approach.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Comparison of qPCR and metabarcoding for environmental DNA surveillance of a freshwater parasite.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Genomics for monitoring and understanding species responses to global climate change.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2024Review
- Storms facilitate airborne DNA from leaf fragments outside the main tree pollen season.Aerobiologia · 2024Article
- Plants, pollinators and their interactions under global ecological change: The role of pollen DNA metabarcoding.Molecular ecology · 2023Article
- Aerobiological Monitoring and Metabarcoding of Grass Pollen.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Development of Novel Early Detection Technology for Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, Adelges tsugae (Hemiptera: Adelgidae).Journal of economic entomology · 2023Article
- Article
- AirDNA sampler: An efficient and simple device enabling high-yield, high-quality airborne environment DNA for metagenomic applications.PloS one · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAirborne environmental DNA (eDNA) research is an emerging field that focuses on the detection of species from their genetic remnants in the air. The majority of studies into airborne eDNA of plants has until now either focused on single species detection, specifically only pollen, or human health impacts, with no previous studies surveying an entire plant community through metabarcoding. We therefore conducted an airborne eDNA metabarcoding survey and compared the results to a traditional plant community survey.
resultsOver the course of a year, we conducted two traditional transect-based visual plant surveys alongside an airborne eDNA sampling campaign on a short-grass rangeland. We found that airborne eDNA detected more species than the traditional surveying method, although the types of species detected varied based on the method used. Airborne eDNA detected more grasses and forbs with less showy flowers, while the traditional method detected fewer grasses but also detected rarer forbs with large showy flowers. Additionally, we found the airborne eDNA metabarcoding survey required less sampling effort in terms of the time needed to conduct a survey and was able to detect more invasive species than the traditional method.
conclusionsOverall, we have demonstrated that airborne eDNA can act as a sensitive and efficient plant community surveying method. Airborne eDNA surveillance has the potential to revolutionize the way plant communities are monitored in general, track changes in plant communities due to climate change and disturbances, and assist with the monitoring of invasive and endangered species.
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