‘Gamechanging’ £10m environmental DNA project to map life in world’s rivers

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Concealed by the turbid, swirling waters of the Amazon, the Mekong and the Congo, the biodiversity of the world’s great rivers has largely remained a mystery to scientists. But now a multimillion-pound project aims to describe and identify the web of life in major freshwater ecosystems around the world with “gamechanging” DNA technology.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and UK-based environmental DNA (eDNA) specialists NatureMetrics have launched a partnership to take thousands of water samples from freshwater river systems like the Ganges and the Niger delta to identify the fish, birds, amphibians and land animals that live in and around them.

Scientists have warned that human behaviour is driving the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth, with one million species at risk. Freshwater ecosystems have been disproportionately affected but conservation efforts are often hindered by a lack of data on the organisms that live in wetlands and river systems.

The $15m (£10.6m) eBioAtlas programme will target areas threatened by the climate crisis and human expansion. The project will fill in critical knowledge gaps and establish biodiversity baselines by analysing genetic material in the water, beginning with the Malagarasi River basin in Tanzania that flows into Lake Tanganyika.

Source - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/17/gamechanging-environmental-dna-project-to-map-life-in-worlds-rivers-aoe

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Bezos has made as much money since this thread was posted <3 imagine how game-changing he could be!!! That's exciting, hope it inspires more work and success.