Sampling intensity and temporal persistence of airborne eDNA in partially enclosed spaces

Abstract

Airborne environmental DNA (eDNA) has shown promise as a terrestrial biomonitoring tool and its ecological applications are expanding. Despite its growing use, airborne eDNA does not yet have the extensive body of supporting research like its aquatic counterpart, with considerable uncertainty remaining concerning how airborne eDNA behaves, with regards to signal duration, and how much sampling effort is needed to capture DNA in a given airspace. By using airborne eDNA in a semi-controlled environment which acted as an artificial roost where bat species and their abundances were known, we estimated the sampling intensity (both the number of samples and number of sampling events) required to capture bat diversity of a given airspace, as well as signal persistence of airborne eDNA. Together these data provide a temporal scale for airborne eDNA measurements. The majority of species richness was detected using as little as 4 samplers in this enclosed space and the greater the number of sampling events, the fewer samplers were needed. Both air movement and the type of environment (i.e., enclosed space, open area etc.) are likely to impact detection and need to be considered during study design. eDNA also appeared to settle out of the air quickly, suggesting that detections likely reflect recent activity, which also has important implication for rare species which may only have a narrow window for detection. Our results add to the growing body of literature that indicate airborne eDNA can be a useful biosurvey method, especially for rapid surveys in communities with high turnover rates.