Please join us for an E-IPER dissertation defense by Meghan M. Shea, who will present "Advancing the Use of Environmental DNA as a Tool for Marine Biodiversity Monitoring."

In-person: Y2E2 111

Virtual: Zoom webinar

ABSTRACT

Directly or indirectly, all people rely on ocean ecosystems, but climate change and other human impacts are transforming marine environments faster than we can study them. One major barrier is our limited ability to monitor marine life at the scale and speed needed to inform conservation and policy. A promising solution is environmental DNA, or eDNA: genetic material that organisms leave behind in their ecosystems. With eDNA, researchers can detect the presence of marine species from a simple water sample—no need to see, catch, or identify the organisms themselves. Whether this new type of knowledge claim, divorced from familiar visual observation, can sway marine decision-making remains understudied. 

My dissertation explores the social and scientific dimensions of marine eDNA approaches across six interdisciplinary chapters. In my first two chapters, I identify moments of friction and mistrust surrounding marine eDNA tools—drawing on archival research as well as interviews, focus groups, and participant observation with both community scientists and professionalized researchers using eDNA for the first time. I then analyze what eDNA can actually reveal about complex coastal ecosystems, showing through field studies at two rocky intertidal sites that it can detect fine-scale ecological patterns and complement conventional biodiversity surveys. My final two chapters turn to applications of eDNA approaches, highlighting concerns about eDNA data accessibility and reuse as well as the possibilities of the use of molecular tools with the public. Taken together, my research shows that eDNA tools hold great promise for characterizing and protecting marine biodiversity—but their impact depends as much on social dynamics as on scientific advances. To fully realize the potential of eDNA for conservation and management, we must navigate both its technical capabilities and the human contexts in which it is used.