Amphibian Monitoring Using Environmental DNA

Environmental DNA, or eDNA, refers to the DNA that organisms leave behind or shed as they pass through the environment. DNA technology has evolved to allow researchers to detect DNA signatures from material such as mucus, feces, urine, or sloughed skin that is naturally contained within pond water and aquatic sediment. We have worked towards a reliable method of detecting amphibians using eDNA. The first phase of this work involved a MSc project developing an approach for detecting three amphibians in water and aquatic sediment samples. The second phase involved a partnership with Washington State University to further refine and evaluate water and aquatic sediment sampling methods. In 2018, we adjusted our eDNA sampling methods to ensure more complete coverage of study ponds so that target species were more fully represented in the set of samples collected. This new strategy improved our ability to detect certain species that occur in either lower densities or have tadpoles with schooling behaviour that may result in patchy distribution of their eDNA in a pond. The water filtration technique was as good as field surveys for confirming the presence of boreal toads, wood frogs, and boreal chorus frogs at the ponds sampled; whereas detection was lower using aquatic sediment. These results indicate eDNA sampling can be an effective alternative to more traditional amphibian monitoring methods. The next step is to write up what we have learned and make the results available to our partners and conservation community through a peer-reviewed publication.

Partnerships

Alberta Environment and Parks, Shell Canada Energy, Washington State University – Dr. Caren Goldberg

Annual Summaries

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