Plant biodiversity from airborne environmental DNA (JDP Montpellier)

The use of airborne eDNA sampling to reveal and monitor plant biodiversity is still little documented. Thuillet et al. demonstrate from a study in a botanical garden that a reasonable number of plant species (92) can be detected from air with a relatively small sampling effort. Sampling detects species over several dozens of meters (until 120m). Flowering increases the detectability of species, but sampling also covers debris of a large number of non-flowering plants at the time of the sampling. Not all taxa are evenlikely detectable, trees being less represented than herbal plants.