Occasionally a big idea comes along that promises to revolutionize the world – think about things like self-driving cars. For biologists – especially those who work with fish and other aquatic plants and animals – eDNA is one of those big ideas. While scientists are only really beginning to understand the uses of eDNA, the technology is beginning to prove its worth.
“We don’t have to know everything about it [eDNA] to make it useful – as long as we’re accounting for errors,” says Caren Goldberg, an ecologist at Washington State University.