discussion / eDNA & Genomics  / 28 January 2016

DNA in scent marks

This could be huge for monitoring territorial species, not to mention have the potential to reduce the number of poor souls that have to handle carnivore scats! Alas, it's too late for me to avoid cutting my hands on the shards of bone in tiger poo.

Results of the work indicate that DNA in scent marks is as good or better than that found in scats. Because scent marks are more frequently encountered in the field, extraction of DNA from scent marks may improve monitoring by increasing the precision of our estimates and decreasing costs.

Now the question is whether this method provides a reliable means of collected DNA in cold and arid and wet and humid environments, and whether you can extract the DNA for multiple individuals from a single scent tree.