ArticleEnvironmental DNA (Hoboken, N.J.)2020
What do you mean by false positive.
Article in Environmental DNA (Hoboken, N.J.), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed.
- Substrate-Dependent Variation in Environmental DNA Persistence and Degradation From a Small Mammal.Molecular ecology resources · 2026Article
- Biomonitoring 3.0: Beyond Taxa Lists to Evidence-Tiered Monitoring of Ecosystem Dynamics and Interactions.Ecology and evolution · 2026Review
- Making eDNA more digestible: A pizza analogy for understanding false negatives and occupancy modeling.Bioscience · 2026Review
- Invisible invaders: A new warning flag for molecularly detected alien species (MODAS) in databases and information systems.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Vertebrate biodiversity via eDNA at the air-water interface.iScience · 2026Article
- Beyond Species Richness: A Statistically Rigorous Comparison of eDNA and Conventional Fish Sampling Methods.Environmental science & technology · 2026Article
- Article
- Development of a Duplex Digital PCR and Validation on eDNA Water Samples for Monitoring of the Asian Swamp Eel (Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Properties and Limitations of eDNA Substrates for Terrestrial Animal Monitoring.Molecular ecology resources · 2026Review
- Biomonitoring in the Anthropocene: Urban estuary environmental DNA tracks marine fish, terrestrial wildlife, and human diet.PloS one · 2026Article
- Using eDNA as a viable fish monitoring approach in Northern Gulf estuarine habitats.Environmental monitoring and assessment · 2025Article
- Network dynamics revealed from eDNA highlight seasonal variation in urban mammal communities.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- DNA metabarcoding of spider egg sacs uncovers novel insights into host parasitoid complexes and trophic networks.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Navigating uncertainty in environmental DNA detection of a nuisance marine macroalga.PloS one · 2025Article
- A predictive framework for identifying source populations of non-native marine macroalgae:PeerJ · 2025Article
- No pump, no problem: evaluating passive eDNA sampling for marine biomonitoring of a nuisance macroalga.PeerJ · 2025Article
- Field Trials of an Autonomous eDNA Sampler in Lotic Waters.Environmental science & technology · 2024Article
- Evaluating eDNA and eRNA metabarcoding for aquatic biodiversity assessment: From bacteria to vertebrates.Environmental science and ecotechnology · 2024Article
- Critical considerations for communicating environmental DNA science.Environmental DNA (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2024Article
- Improving the efficiency of adaptive management methods in multiple fishways using environmental DNA.PloS one · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Misunderstandings regarding the term "false positive" present a significant hurdle to broad adoption of eDNA monitoring methods. Here, we identify three challenges to clear communication of false-positive error between scientists, managers, and the public. The first arises from a failure to distinguish between false-positive eDNA detection at the sample level and false-positive inference of taxa presence at the site level. The second is based on the large proportion of false positives that may occur when true-positive detections are likely to be rare, even when rates of contamination or other error are low. And the third misunderstanding occurs when conventional species detection approaches, often based on direct capture, are used to confirm eDNA approaches without acknowledging or quantifying the conventional approach's detection probability. The solutions to these issues include careful and consistent communication of error definitions, managing expectations of error rates, and providing a balanced discussion not only of alternative sources of species DNA, but also of the detection limitations of conventional methods. We argue that the benefit of addressing these misunderstandings will be increased confidence in the utility of eDNA methods and, ultimately, improved resource management using eDNA approaches. The term false positive is often misused in eDNA research and natural resource management. There are issues of scale of inference, the base rate fallacy, and confirmation errors using conventional methods of detection. We offer a perspective to guide discussions of errors in species detection.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.