Helping preserve rare, threatened amphibians, scientists at Washington State University are launching a $1.4 million effort to unobtrusively find and study them through the environmental traces of their DNA.
Leading a team of researchers at WSU and partner institutions, Caren Goldberg, assistant professor in WSU’s School of the Environment, studies environmental DNA, or eDNA—genetic material sampled from soil or water rather than directly from an organism.
Supported by a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense, her team is developing new eDNA techniques to reveal and understand endangered amphibians on military bases across the nation.
Read more at Washington State University
Photo: Sonora tiger salamander eggs. The Sonoran tiger salamander and other threatened amphibians could be better protected thanks to new WSU research into eDNA. Photo by Katherine Strickler.