The University of West of England and the Woodland Creation & Ecological Network (WrEN) were keen to test the hypothesis that relative levels of avian species richness within woodlands can be measured by extracting and identifying DNA filtered from the air.

This project sought to test whether an emerging method of extracting DNA from the air has the potential to become a robust and efficient tool for monitoring bird species in Scottish woodlands to indicate changes in woodland ecology.

Outcomes

An interim report confirmed that “DNA extracted from the air in woodlands within a ‘wild’ landscape context can be used to detect avian species and that the results, although sparse, provide an accurate estimate of the total number of species within an ecosystem when compared to the results of standard audio-visual surveys. As such, we believe that active airDNA sampling shows promise as a method for providing quantitative measures of biodiversity … Refining the sampling methodology is now an important step in the development of airDNA techniques.”