Understanding the ecological relevance of eDNA in freshwater lotic ecosystems

LOFRESH is a multi-institution collaborative initiative funded by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Highlight Topic grant to improve our ability to utilize environmental DNA (eDNA) for tracking the presence and abundance of species in and around freshwater habitats. Environmental DNA refers to shed cells or extracellular DNA from organisms as they pass through an environment (e.g. water, soil and air), or die and decay. By doing so, animals and plants leave traces of their DNA in the environment that can be detected using a number of molecular genetic approaches.

We expect that our findings will provide valuable insights for the fields of freshwater ecology, biomonitoring and environmental assessment. Launched in March 2016, LOFRESH aims to understand the dynamics between living communities and lotic (i.e. riverine) eDNA in relation to spatial and environmental variation.

While led by Bangor University, LOFRESH is also directly supported by The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), Cardiff University and the University of Birmingham.