For this month’s interview, we speak with Dr. Georgia Nester, a colleague of Alan’s from the University of Western Australia, about eDNA (Environmental DNA is any genetic material left behind by organisms in an environment). She talks about how several collection methods, eg.: Niskin bottles, sponges and paper filters, located on the deep-sea lander system, can retrieve different types of eDNA from the deep. Georgia also touches on how diel migrators can really mess with eDNA data, and larvae gave her a surprise when she kept getting hits from very deep-living fish in her surface samples. Georgia even used a water sample to locate surprise eDNA evidence of the Giant Squid in Australian waters, which Al takes as a chance to remind Thom of his Antarctic colossal squid failure.

Alan talks about how valuable he thinks eDNA is, how it can give a great snapshot of what can’t be seen on the footage or in the submersible, and how it might be able to narrow down species that are difficult to catch, like Bassozetus cusk eels.

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Nester, G. M., Suter, L., Kitchener, J. A., Bunce, M., Polanowski, A. M., Wasserman, J., & Deagle, B. (2024). Long-distance Southern Ocean environmental DNA (eDNA) transect provides insights into spatial marine biota and invasion pathways for non-native species. Science of the Total Environment, 951, 175657.

Takahashi, M., Saccò, M., Kestel, J. H., Nester, G., Campbell, M. A., Van Der Heyde, M., ... & Allentoft, M. E. (2023). Aquatic environmental DNA: A review of the macro-organismal biomonitoring revolution. Science of the Total Environment, 873, 162322.

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